BS: Laura, as I wrote to you the other night, I had an insight that helped me understand what probably happened with Babygate. Can we have a conversation about this?

LN: Your comment surprised and intrigued me, Brad. And I know that a few others have wondered too what epiphany you might have had. I believe your comment came out of a brief discussion in comments about your theory, or feelings, on Bristol giving birth to a child with Down syndrome. Let’s go from there.

BS: Well, the person most responsible for getting me to rethink my views was Henry Blodgett, the head of BusinessInsider.com. After BI recently published my Babygate article, Henry and I exchanged several emails about whether a Palin family member could likely be Trig’s mother. And then, as you note, I bounced ideas about that off some of your regulars here. Finally, a few nights ago, I was literally lying awake, tossing and turning in bed, when all those ideas from everyone came together and produced a lightning bolt of understanding – and I was so excited I had to get up, go to my computer and send you that message.

My epiphany was that citing the odds against a teenager having a Down syndrome child is not very useful in figuring out what likely happened with Trig. Before the insight, my reasoning went like this: 1) because it was very beneficial to Sarah for Trig to have Down syndrome, and 2) because the odds against a teenager having a DS baby are remote, then Bristol probably was not the mother – Sarah Palin could not have been that lucky, I thought. I was virtually convinced that a Down syndrome ringer had been brought in from the outside, to benefit Sarah politically.

But here’s the flaw in that logic: it overlooks the likelihood that Sarah would have found a way to help herself politically from virtually anything that happened to be wrong with Trig. I realized that Bristol can be a strong candidate for the birth mother, because it’s not that unusual for a baby to be born with some disability – and in Trig’s case, Ds happened to be the disability. But if it had been multiple sclerosis, spina bifida, etc., Palin could likewise have milked it for political advantage.

By the way, I know some will say we don’t need to speculate on Trig’s bio-parents, just the fact that Sarah perpetrated the hoax. But I believe that without a plausible story as to what did take place, the public won’t accept that the hoax happened.

LN: I agree with you there. Besides, the “who” and “how” are as fascinating as the “what” might have taken place. There are those who look at the broader view and the political implications behind the hoax. I see their point entirely. And there is the view that this was a personal story exploited for personal reasons, and the “greater good” as far as Sarah could see.

BS: Well, my insight got me to view the entire birth narrative in a new light. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that Bristol gave birth to Trig around Feb. 15, 2008. Let’s also assume nobody knew in advance the baby would have Down syndrome – after all, that’s not something teenagers are often tested for. If that’s the case, perhaps Sarah did not develop a plan to fake anything until after the baby was born.

Here’s a research challenge for your readers: what’s the earliest date that anyone can find for Sarah wearing her pregnancy “disguise” of a big flowing scarf? She’s wearing it in the Newsweek interview on March 4. But on Feb. 13, Sarah appeared in the video where she walks around Juneau drinking coffee, etc. Below to the left is a still shot from that video, and to the right a lightened close-up of her torso.

BS: Notice that there is no scarf. And Sarah allowed herself to be shot with the wind blowing her jacket against her, showing a belly that looks as flat as a board – nothing at all like the belly of someone more than six months pregnant.

She seemingly hadn’t formulated the fake-pregnancy plan at this point. But why not? Bristol had been pregnant for quite some time. Sarah had plenty of time to figure out what to do. She would have been far better off starting the ruse when she was supposedly five months along instead of seven.

My take: Palin did not plan to fake the pregnancy until after Trig was born, when she learned he had Down syndrome. She certainly had the means to “hide” the baby and the fact of his birth, at least until after the election, if necessary – and that probably had been the plan until Trig arrived. But I think that after learning Trig had DS, Sarah opportunistically hatched the scheme to fake the birth.

Does this theory make sense, Laura?

LN: It does. And it’s almost too perfect for words. Let’s say for a moment that baby had been born with a far more esoteric defect or chromosomal disorder. Would that story have “played” well with the masses? Probably not. But if there is one thing that is universally known, or heard of, it’s Ds. And if there is one disorder that better exemplifies the RTL argument, I can’t think of it. Instead of making Sarah appear to be more of a burden (on the ticket) saddled with a challenging newborn, she was seen as a savior holding a poster child aloft.

BS: Another thing that had tripped me up before was the two Trigs angle. I could not figure out why two different babies had been displayed as Trig, but I figured something that bizarre must relate to an elaborate scheme to bring in a DS ringer. But one of your commenters explained the reason for two Trigs quite simply the other day:

Some people immediately could tell that the baby, Bristol’s baby, that Chuck Heath showed the KTUU camera crew at the Mat-Su hospital on April 18 was not a newborn preemie – and they immediately wrote that at the Anchorage Daily News web site. The comments were quickly taken down, but the Palins realized that for the next month or two, they needed a younger stand-in for Trig for photo ops they would orchestrate.

That’s where the ruffled-ears baby came in. Whose baby that really was, we may never know, but the baby met two key requirement: he (or she) was smaller than Trig and had Down syndrome. The Palins did not foresee that the ear problem would give the game away.

So a party was arranged at Kristan Cole’s home in honor of the baby, and it took place sometime in May. Pictures from the party were posted to the Internet, but whoever posted them made a mistake – she (or he) uploaded them as high-resolution photos, meaning people could zoom in on the ears and see the birth defect. By contrast, the Gusty-interview photos where Sarah wore her orca whale prosthetic were downsized so that not too much detail showed.

Incidentally, that means Kristan Cole, former Palin government appointee and BFF, is definitely an insider to the hoax. She must have seen the ear deformity of the baby at her house and knows the real Trig has no such deformity. The pictures of Ruffles were uploaded to her real estate business homepage. So I guess she is the one Sarah should blame for not downsizing those shots. Bill “I’ll slap you” McAllister (one might assume) was more careful with the Gusty photos.

So Ruffles served his purpose, but by September enough time had passed so that the real Trig could be shown at the Republican National Convention without his apparent age being an issue.

LN: Allow me to interject something here. When I saw Trig at the RNC, my immediate impression was that he must be deaf and was awfully big for a 4-month-old. The following month, he was brought on stage following the debate. It was as if three months had passed before my eyes. That baby, that night, was SO much bigger than the baby the month before. In fact, I wondered aloud to a doctor friend of mine whether the baby had some sort of metabolic disorder. I couldn’t fathom how he could get that big that fast.

I don’t say this to clarify, or muddy, any points. It’s just not something that I’ve said aloud before. And it’s always nagged at me. But here is something I have said many times: nothing in this story adds up. Not the sofa bolster bust at the RNC, not the size of the various babies in their TV appearances, not the announcements of their births, not the shape shifting women who are supposedly their mothers. Nothing.

BS: I couldn’t agree more. A finalnote. If this narrative is correct, it makes clear that the hoax happened strictly as an act of political opportunism. Palin did not fake the birth to help Bristol; she did it to give herself a better shot at the vice presidency. At some point, I predict, the hoax will be exposed. And you can bet Palin will say it was all about protecting Bristol. And that will be yet one more brazen lie.

I have to be quick here but your new premise of Trig being Bristol's, Brad, is what I have thought most of the past three years. I do think that "taking" Trig from Bristol also helped with the expense and supposed maturity needed to raise a Ds child. (Ha Ha in retrospect.)

I go back and forth about the two Trigs primarily because of the way Levi holds Trig in the May 2008 photos in the Palin kitchen (from Sadie's MySpace page, etc.). I know it is simple, but the way Levi kissed Trig and the RNC convention convinces me that he is the father. I cannot let go of that. The way Bristol held Trig at the convention also convinces me that she is the mother.

Good thinking and good post, guys.

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Brad Scharlott

10/04/2011 10:06

mmud: I don't disagree about Levi being the father; I don't really have a strong feeling one way or another. The post about Wooten and Trig looking alike was to generate discussion and get insights; on balance, I don't think Wooten is more likely than not the father. And Levi and Bristol do have a history together.

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lilly lily

10/04/2011 10:09

A downs baby is more usual to be out in public than say a cerebral palsied child which often is institutionlized or homebound.

The last few days I have seen about 3 DS, one congenitally deformed woman whose mother had taken anti nausea pills and has flipper for arms and tiny legs. She is ambulatory though basically a torso, and leads a full and rich life as she is mentally fine. At the library a twentish girl with an unknown disability who shouted, "Dont bite and don't scratch" into my ears a number of times. That is in two days. The world is full of people dealing with enormous problems, and transcending them nobly with the help of loving parents.

Both Bristol, Levi and Piper were the three most consistant who seemed to have much love for the child. Though once Tripp was here that changed.

Levi tells various versions, Bristol keeps her mouth shut, and Piper? Well her goal in life she once said, was to become a baby sitter when she grew up, and sure enough that is what she was. Trigs baby sitter through the book tour.

What young teenaged boy is that loving to babies that are not his own issue?

Girls, ok, a few are maternal, but teenagers are generally interested in having a fine time or getting educated. Neither Levi nor Bristol have any interest in education. Both seem interested in having a good time in their own ways. Bristol in becoming a paid celebrity and boys, and Levi in hunting and girls. I don't think Levi is into celebrity the way Bristol is.

The trolls come here to whitewash Bristol and the Palins. But they are not really interested in their vapid following except to milk them dry.

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Diane

10/04/2011 10:10

Why did she and Todd go after Wooten so fast and furious? All 3 authors, Bailey, Dunn and McGinness could not figure it out. But the palins were ruthless to get that man away from the family.
Could Trig be her sister Molly's baby and she, Molly, did not want/couldn't keep the baby?
Maybe the baby was not Wootens and that would have screwed up the divorce proceedings for Molly?

The Health/Palins are very clannish, an almost us against them philosophy that Joe McGinness did a good job of showing the history of.

I think that baby was a family baby.
That he had DS was just icing on the cake as far as sarah was concerned. She could and did use him to her political advantage.

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Beaglemom

10/04/2011 10:13

I've always suspected that Bristol is Trig's birth mother. It makes the Tripp pregnancy make more sense - bitterness that her child was being used by her own mother for political purposes. Something like "I'll show her. She thought she could bury my pregnancy but I'll do it again!"

I also think exposing the truth of the Great Pregnancy Hoax of 2008 is important because of its political implications and because Sarah Palin has used the child involved for her own political ambitions. She has profoundly affected her daughter's life, Trig's life and Tripp's life. She must be exposed. If that means that members of the McCain campaign get embarrassed or forced to explain their silence and complicity, so much the better. But the American public deserves the truth. Thank you Prof. Scharlott and Laura and all the other bloggers who have pursued this topic seriously and consistently.

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mistah charley, ph.d.

10/04/2011 10:28

I like the "first came the baby, then came the plan to use the baby for political purposes" aspect of this hypothesis. I like the use of the photos to show that the hoax hadn't yet begun in mid-February 2008.

It also makes sense of the reports of Bristol's anger when she heard of Sarah's "pregnancy announcement" - this made it official that her baby was being repurposed.

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CO

10/04/2011 10:32

"my immediate impression was that he ...was awfully big for a 4-month-old."

Without a Doubt.
It looked absurd to be hanging--thats what it was--this large baby down the front of 'bodies' as opposed to cradling a small 4mos old in your arms.
Trig looked near to walking age! when he was draped down the front of briskets body!
(Also likely drugged somehow since
he quite literally had no reactions to big stages noise or any of the display on that stage or in the audience. But I guess 'we' were to conjure the DS was the cause of his 'being out of it'.)

The kid was well older than 4mos old at that time.

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KittyKat

10/04/2011 10:36

One thing that stops me from believing Trig is a blood relation is Heathers Oct 07 email about what special needs parents are up against in the world.

THAT is far too coincidental for me in thinking that a member of the family was soon to have a spcecial needs child.

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Kittykat

10/04/2011 10:38

But I believe that without a plausible story as to what did take place, the public won’t accept that the hoax happened.
--

This is true. Without the WHY, theres no story or proof.

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Hillary

10/04/2011 10:40

Brad, you may want to use a birth date Bristol wasnt out and about in public. The only time Bristol could have had a baby was Dec 07 and early Jan possibly.

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rubbernecking

10/04/2011 10:41

Why did she wait to announce the DS diagnosis until after the 4/18 birth? What was the motivation for keeping this secret between 3/5/2008 and 4/18/2008?

I think a perfectly healthy baby would have also been a compelling story. She could have said DS was suspected by the ultrasound, that she refused additional testing, refused to consider abortion, prayed for courage, and was blessed with a healthy baby. Don't pro-life folks love the stories about a mother using prayer instead of medical advice (e.g. Tebow's mother)?

Which baby did the Palins take to work on 4/22? Which baby was used in the June People magazine shoot? Once Palin became VP nominiee, her family was under Secret Service protection. Did they tell the Secret Service about the baby swaps or did they trick the Secret Service?

I find it hard to believe they'd take on the risk/effort of caring for two babies because newspaper comments questioned if the hospital baby looked sufficiently premature. There were already so many questions about this magical pregnancy--it seems odd that the prematurity question was deemed so most important.

The population of AK is very small. What are the odds there was a spare, tiny caucasian infant with DS available in AK on such short notice?

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ravenstrick

10/04/2011 10:43

Glad you had an epiphany Brad, but I've been saying this in comment threads for years. She announced that she was having a DS baby ispo facto the DS baby had already arrived.

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Anonymous

10/04/2011 10:44

I don't think Sarah ever wanted to adopt Trig for political advantage. I think they HAD to adopt him because, once he was born and found to have DS, the people who were going to adopt him backed out. A disabled child is extremely difficult to place, especially since he was already born and they didn't have any time to find someone else to adopt him. Sarah had to keep him and then proceeded to exploit him.

BTW, everyone focuses on how young mothers are unlikely to have a DS baby, but let's not forget there was a father too. The older the father, the greater the odds of DS.

I like this theory's explanation of the borrowed Ruffles. I didn't know about the comments on the Anchorage Daily News that had been taken down. It makes sense that the Palins would quickly react by finding another baby to temporarily play Trig. It's been proven how obsessed and reactive Sarah is about the comments on websites and her image in general. However, I've ALWAYS thought the baby was Bristol's, and that Sarah stole it only for her political career. Nothing that woman does is ever for the good of her family.

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But

10/04/2011 11:02

But Laura, the two babies theory doesn't make sense, not when ruffles looks EXACTLY like Trig. His hair growth is pretty consistent. And the April 18th baby looks like ruffles just a bit plumper.

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Lilly

10/04/2011 11:04

"he (or she) was smaller than Trig and had Down syndrome. The Palins did not foresee that the ear problem would give the game away."

How likely is it that there are two babies with DS at the Palins disposal in AK?

Trig was constantly with Sarah that whole summer. Her staff saw a lot of him. Frank B STILL believes she gave birth and he obvously has omre picture than the ones he put in his book. Pictures btw that show a weird ear. To my naked eye, Ruffles is Trig. I will email you a montage I made that makes me 100% believe this.

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search4more

10/04/2011 11:06

I don't think anyone should have a definitive theory. There is not enough evidence to have one. I think what you have come up with Brad is a good theory which I enjoyed reading and thought was fairly convincing, but keep your mind open, because at the end of the day there are a lot of guesses involved.

Brad, you asked when the earliest was that Palin started wearing scarves. I looked at the pictures I have. The earliest one I found was an AP picture that AP claimed was from the 14th February.

Here it is:

http://bit.ly/nuVqVK

The text that went with the picture said "Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin center responds to ConocoPhillips recent announcement that they may rethink their gasoline proposal."

The next picture I have with her with a scarf on is this one on the 19th February:

http://bit.ly/n16vUr

I started reading the Wikipedia article about the 2008 Republican primary after I read your post. On the 14th February Romney endorsed McCain and the primary was pretty much over. The media then started to think about possible running mates for McCain. That makes you go "hm" doesn't it. ;-)

-------------------------------

Another thing I wanted to mention was that the gusty pictures were not really that low a resolution. I found a copy of one of them that was 1500 x 1125 pixels and had the EXIF data in the file. It makes absolutely no difference to what you can see in the picture. I just thought I'd mention it seeing as you were talking about the resolution of the pictures.

I enjoyed reading your conversation with Laura. :-)

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anon

10/04/2011 11:08

I have four sons ages 22 to 27. All cradled and kissed their newborn nephew, so I don't find it unbelievable that Levi would be loving to someone else's child...particularly in light of the fact that he was soon to be a father.
What I do find unbelievable is the way Sarah carried Trig around in the first year. I have never in my life seen a mother hold her baby the way she held him. It was brutal. I show more affection and concern carrying my dog.

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pollyinak

10/04/2011 11:11

I had a friend in her early forties who was pregnant with her first child. A neighbor in her late twenties was pregnant at the same time. My friend was worried about DS. It was very ironic, weird, in fact, that her neighbor had a DS baby! My friend's baby was perfect in every way, a smart and beautiful girl. So, on that street the odds were 50/50 for a younger mother with a DS birth.

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KatzKids

10/04/2011 11:12

The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. I think your epiphany is probably right on Brad.

Thanks to you & Laura.

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KatzKids

10/04/2011 11:19

I also wanted to say that when I was in a store recently, I came across a mom with what I thought was her newborn baby. I adore babies so went over to her, congratulated her & asked how old he was. The answer surprised me because it's been so long since my "babies" were born. He was 3 months old. I agree with everyone here that Trig looked to be much larger than a 4 month old and clearly was given something to keep him so unresponsive at all his early appearances. It might be that he's nearly deaf so that could be part of it, but a baby, in strange and noisy circumstances - out of their own homes, just don't lay unconscious like that without help. Same for Tripp on his appearance on the Today show.

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Viola-Alex

10/04/2011 11:24

I like it.

I'm still confused about the WHY. Wouldn't Palin have gotten as much political boost from being granny to a DS baby? Promoting Trig as a family affair? Why risk the fake pregnancy? Did she have to do it to coerce Bristol in some way?

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Doubter here

10/04/2011 11:24

A downs baby is more usual to be out in public than say a cerebral palsied child which often is institutionlized or homebound.

------

I don't know about the early life of CP babies, but one of my good college friends has CP. Sadly, I have lost contact with him. BUt I DO remember him saying his life expectancy was 29 yrs.

The average life of typical DS person is much longer. I'd say 40s but I have no real basis for that.

I personally think it's too coincidental for Trig to be a blood relation. We've proven by comparing him to outside people that looks really don't matter.

However, I was thinking about our girl Gina Loudon the other day and Sammy, her adopted DS son, looks like her family members and her.

I have several friends who are adopted and they all looks like at least one parents. I think it's just the natural order or something. Our eyes DO play weird games without our knowledge.

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Jolene

10/04/2011 11:27

Haven't read all the comments yet, but as a newbie to Babyhoax I have a question about the two-Trigs theory: Could you post those photos of the baby first at the RNC and then a month later after the debate? Just for comparison purposes.

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Lucid

10/04/2011 11:34

"Both Bristol, Levi and Piper were the three most consistant who seemed to have much love for the child. Though once Tripp was here that changed."

I don't understand these two things. Willow and Todd have also publicly showed love for Trig. Todd probably the most out of all of them. Willow is the one I hear about who spends ample amount of time with him and everytime I see a picture of them, Trig is beaming. Just making observations here.

"Levi tells various versions, Bristol keeps her mouth shut, and Piper? Well her goal in life she once said, was to become a baby sitter when she grew up, and sure enough that is what she was. Trigs baby sitter through the book tour."
I think Levi's in the dark regarding a lot of things. There was a lot of personal drama for him in early 08 that had nothing to do with the Palins. Bristol can't mention Trig without outing her mother, so she can't clear her name. Piper is 10 and constantly sees babies and people nurturing babies. Of course she's going to all over Trig and other babies. Willow also seems to enjoy the babies. I've seen video of Sarah joking with Tripp when they're outside playing (in AZ) and Todd shows obvious love and attachment to both boys.

"What young teenaged boy is that loving to babies that are not his own issue?" I see Levi as a hangers on to avoid personal drama. When Trig "was born" Levi knew that Bristol might be pregnant at any moment. I'm sure he was freaking out inside and desired practical experience with babies. Just hearing the phrase "im pregnant" would change a teen boy.

Side note: I'd still like to know why Levi was angry around his 18th bday though. Why no one (Gryphen) will ask Mercede about her mysapce comment is beyond me.

Girls, ok, a few are maternal, but teenagers are generally interested in having a fine time or getting educated.(HA in general, Teens all generally all about fun and not failing school) )Neither Levi nor Bristol have any interest in education. Both seem interested in having a good time in their own ways. Bristol in becoming a paid celebrity (I dont think she cares about celebrity. Shes happiest in AK and in her DL life) and boys, and Levi in hunting and girls. I don't think Levi is into celebrity the way Bristol is. ( think he likes the easy money and fans thought)

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nononanette

10/04/2011 11:39

Beaglemom, then why does Bristol appear so complacent

I think the more likely scenario is that 1. Heather emailed Sarah about the shit she goes through as a parent of a special needs child 2. Sarah vocalizes that she needs to look as if she cares about these types of people (This all happened in Oct 07)

Also during this time, Sarah was talking to big wigs GOP and poiticos about meeting Mccain, figuring he would get the NOM.

I really don't think Bristol as anything to do with any of that.

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Canucklehead

10/04/2011 11:42

Search4more,
The original Gusty pictures that were posted to the Flickr account Eric99559 has a resolution of 1024x768. The attached EXIF data showed a resolution of 3488 x 2616 and indicated that the camera was a Fuji Finepix S9000 (which cannot take pictures at 1024x768). Factcheck.org had the originals sent to them by Gusty herself, also at 1024x768 resolution, though she claimed that she sent them directly from the camera with no post-processing.

Where did you get the higher resolution images?

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Grace

10/04/2011 11:43

What you've proposed is the most likely explanation for the visible timeline. I was shouted down over at IM some time back, but this version has always made the most sense. I do wonder if Bristol gave birth to an FAS baby (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) and the two were "changed out" with their doctor's assistance in placement, or even whether Bristol's first child was placed for adoption but they encountered obstacles with placing a surprise DS baby.

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Beth

10/04/2011 11:44

Trig's life and Tripp's life. She must be exposed.

---

So your goal is to continue to make life difficult for them all? That's smart. They're all living happily. Unless something does change for either Bristol or Levi and they speak (really this would have to be Bristol), no one can change anything.

Trig is a member of their family. It doesn't matter how he got there.

Without the McCain March 4th win, Trig would've been with another loving family probably.

Sarah changed her family's life for the better it appears. They seem closer than ever and remaining that way.

Those are just educated opinions.

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GhostbusterTX

10/04/2011 11:48

Epiphany, really? This has been my starting point, from the moment I saw Sarah's account of the wild ride in that NYTimes. Because she clearly was makin' stuff up off the cuff there, not relying on either a real series of events or on a well-thought out storyline. The water-breaking question threw her completely, and once in for a dime, she was in for a dollar - trying to cover any discrepancies between details that hadn't been worked out.

Remember what a great job she did preparing for the debates? Learning about world events, leaders, policy positions? Basic Geography? She's not one to double-down and work out the finer points, even when the stakes are high.

In other words, I don't think she has the executive function skill set to plan and carry out an elaborate hoax on the off chance that she might gain some slight political advantage.

Why attribute to malice what can be explained by simple incompetence? (Goethe? I can't remember...)

She's a reactor, not a planner. I don't think she planned on finding a fellow commissioner's computer still logged in but she sure made use of that windfall - to not only get herself out of an untenable position on that board but to also catapult herself into the office of Governor, as the "reform" and "ethics" candidate. Think about that.

So I think babygate was never an elaborate hoax to gin up support from anti-abortion issue voters. She already had them, in her pocket. She's one of them, a true believer. I think it evolved one panicked detail at a time, starting at some time in February when she needed to come up with a cover story for something big.

I can think of a number of scenarios that make sense, but really, the political advantage she might gain from not aborting a DS baby as opposed to not aborting a non-DS <i>but still high-risk</i> pregnancy, would be so slight, and so likely to be offset by the "you should be devoting your attention to your child" factor, that I can't imagine her plotting this out as a preferred path to the Oval Office. Not to mention she'd be stuck caring for, or providing for, or dealing with, or working around, a DS child for the rest for her life.

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Asking

10/04/2011 11:49

"But the American public deserves the truth. "

If this truth would cure all problems instantly, then yes, it should be discovered.

BUT - even if this is outed, what does it change? There is still massive amounts of corruption, lying, money laundering to fund whatever, DC secrets, evil socialists, fascists, greedy bastards, war mongering egomaniacs, and suicide bombers.

I ask again, how EXACTLY will outing a innocent child's existence change the country and world? To it another way, how will it change the greed of Wall Street and deceitfulness of DC, the backstabbing nature of political operatives and again, the greed of all politicians?

These are GOOD questions that can't be answered easily, if not for the sole reason of, outing this hoax will not change anything- but only upset innocent people.

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LizH

10/04/2011 11:51

My money has always been on Bristol gave birth to a drug/alcohol exposed baby. That is certainly news to hide if you hold political office. CBJ was tasked with finding DS Trig to replace FAS Ruffles.

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eclecticsandra

10/04/2011 11:54

Laura, there may be some pictures that would support your idea of huge growth of Trig between RNC and the debate. Piper was carrying him a lot. She would have grown a bit during this time, but comparing Trig's length and head size to Piper's might be instructive.

There was an appearance of Trig in late summer in Alaska that amazed at least one observer. Trig had seemed to have a growth spurt at that time. Most of the spring and early summer pictures have Trig in a sling. This made many people think the baby was actually a doll.

We have learned that SP wrote the birth announcement (from God) before Trig was born. Was the picture taken at that time also?

I agree that the DS was a convenient birth defect. Most older women who have amniocentesis are concerned about DS. It is common enough that we are familiar with it and it doesn't cause a person to look away.

Brad, I like those middle of the night enlightenments. I certainly have thought about this mystery more nights than I would like to acknowledge.

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Doubter here

10/04/2011 11:55

"cradling a small 4mos old in your arms."

Like when Todd AND Sarah cradled him on the campaign bus? Like that?

To be born to Bristol, Trig would have had to be born by mid January and that's unlikely since she was attending a school that started in early January. That would make him technically 8 mos old at RNC time. Some 8 mos olds begin walking. Trig couldn't lift his head well nor control his limbs well either. He could move his arms rhythmically it appeared but even just looking at that hockey game picture with Sarah holding him (blue outfit), he to be about 6mos to me.

I can't get over the similarities between ruffles and Trig today. They have the same flatness of the top of their ear AND the same ear structure.

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dundundun

10/04/2011 11:57

"Why did she wait to announce the DS diagnosis until after the 4/18 birth? What was the motivation for keeping this secret between 3/5/2008 and 4/18/2008?"

WIllow did tell Barbara Walters that they found out about the DS the day he was born.

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Jessie T

10/04/2011 11:58

Brad, I (and several others) posit that the baby was born earlier than mid-January, but his health was so fragile that Sarah would have had reason to hope that the "situation" would resolve itself all on its own. Cruel, but when isn't she. When it became apparent that the baby was going to pull through, out come the scarves.

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search4more

10/04/2011 11:59

Canucklehead,

Oh! OK well it may be that someone just resized one of those ones from Flickr then to make it bigger. I don't know why they would do that though, but I guess that's what they did.

Sorry for raising your hopes.

If you go to Google image search and type in "palin gusty" then a load of pictures will come up. If you hover your mouse over them they will magnify a bit and at the bottom will be 2 options. One of the options is "more sizes". Click on "more sizes" for the 2nd image google has found and you'll see the one I was talking about.

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Hillary

10/04/2011 11:59

I find it hard to believe they'd take on the risk/effort of caring for two babies because newspaper comments questioned if the hospital baby looked sufficiently premature. There were already so many questions about this magical pregnancy--it seems odd that the prematurity question was deemed so most important.

~~~~~~~

This goes hand in hand with it being hard to believe that Sarah could swap out a baby at random when she always had the baby with her for all her staff to see.

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Brad Scharlott

10/04/2011 12:06

Search4more: Perfect. That Feb. 14 pic moves likely birth date back in time, which some note seems more likely.

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hedgewytch

10/04/2011 12:08

Thank you for validating my theory. I've thought this from the very beginning.

Trig and Tripp are Bristol's and Levi's (well, maybe, but he thinks so). The whole reason Levi backed off and recanted everything is because he has Sarah hanging Trig and his hospital bills over his head. Question is, did Sarah legally adopt Trig? Or is she committing insurance fraud? Or is Trig listed correctly on the medical/insurance papers, and she is just defrauding the rest of us?

The whole scenario makes sense (for a Palin) when you look at the stories in this context. Bristol was pregnant with Trig. As supported by her removal from school - the so-called "mono" period when she was living with her aunt. Because he was a premmie and disabled they brought in the other baby(s) to cover for him until he was big enough to be out of NNICU.

But why the wild ride then? That one she didn't think out very well. Trig must have been released and Palin decided to go ahead and make this a media moment and decides to "give birth" to Trig at that time. But Trig was already home, which is why Sarah bypassed Anchorage and "delivered" Trig at Mat-Su, which had just been built (Now who was the head of the hospital then? And how much did the administrators owe Palin?), even though there was no neo-natal ICU facility there.

Palin takes over Trig and Bristol get pregnant immediately with Tripp. Hence you get the weird RNC stuffed dress/bust photo. Which was just piss poor critical thinking there.

The whole thing is distasteful and mentally twisted. But if you understand how distasteful and mentally twisted the Palin's are, it all makes perfect sense.

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Ottoline

10/04/2011 12:15

Wow! Works for me. Fabulous.

Brad, I wish you could connect with G-man and esp "Fred" and pool your knowledge, even plan an approach to rolling out his book and your paper with these new ideas. But even without any action evolving out of it, I'd love to know that you and "Fred" talk.

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SLQ

10/04/2011 12:22

"A downs baby is more usual to be out in public than say a cerebral palsied child which often is institutionlized or homebound."

------

"I don't know about the early life of CP babies, but one of my good college friends has CP. Sadly, I have lost contact with him."

Actually, neither of these is true. A much-loved member of our family had CP. His life expectancy was normal. He was out in public just like any of us. He was neither homebound nor institutionalized.

You may be mistaking the most severe cases of CP with all cases of CP. Most people with CP live normal lives, albeit with a few more challenges than most people.

Our family member died at age 40 of unrelated causes (complications from surgery unrelated to his CP.)

It must be very busy in that Brooklyn apartment, what with all those people taking turns at the same computer. I encourage Brooklyn to begin her own blog some time soon so that we can read her personal stories of life with the Palins, and view all of her home photos. And learn about her own life so far away from Wasilla.

In the meantime, don't feed the troll. It only encourages her.

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daisydem

10/04/2011 12:23

Brad, this picture is one of the ones I found on the internet and it was put on Palin's Deception in the early days. She is wearing a scarf, but she is also wearing a jacket similar to the zipped up one in the interview you posted. She was in D.C. for the National Governor's Conference. My understanding is she did meet John McCain very briefly at this conference. I do not know if a plan was hatched at that time. The date: February 25, 2008.

Here is a link I hope works for you:
http://www.palindeception.com/calendar/days/022508.html

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lilly lily

10/04/2011 12:28

There is only one reason I bother with these really stupid teens and their mess up.

Sarah Palin and her push for the presidency of the U.S.A..

Otherwise, who the hell gives a damn about those messed up teens? I don't give a rats ass about how happy they are. WHO CARES?

In and of themselves they are boring, and their one admitted child is admittedly charming, but no more so than hundreds of thousands of other charming children.

Once Sarah Palin is truly out of the picture politically I will never read another word about this family.

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search4more

10/04/2011 12:29

brad,

Glad to be of help. Here is the link to the picture on the AP site:

http://bit.ly/nQJNh3

There is a bit more info about what they were doing and who was there in case your interested. I just checked her calendar to make sure AP had got the date right and I found they had.

If this is a really important day, then maybe it makes sense to examine more closely what she was doing on this day and for that matter the previous days. When I checked her calendar for the 14th Feb stuff I noticed that it says at the bottom that she is going to travel to Fairbanks very late at night with Piper, Willow and Bristol. I don't follow it closely enough to know what's in Fairbanks. ...What's in Fairbanks?

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Brad Scharlott

10/04/2011 12:30

daisydem: Perfect - that show the game was afoot at that time! And what, if anything, did McCain and his people know?

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molly malone

10/04/2011 12:30

Brad, I agree that the scarf-wearing probably began around the time of Trig's birth. But I'm still not all that convinced he is Bristol's child.

If Trig was born to Bristol in February, she would have had firsthand experience with the difficulties associated with raising a DS child. So why would she--if Levi is to be believed--wish to get pregnant (again) and run the risk of having another D.S. child? I realize we're looking at some strange family dynamics here, and that when it comes to the Palins there's just no telling how their minds work. But that's always been kind of a sticking point with me.

I can just as easily see Bristol deciding, since everyone thinks I had a baby, I'm entitled to have one. Or--depending upon how she really feels about her mother--I'll have a **better** one than Sarah's. Possibly even: I need to have a baby of my own, so I'm not stuck with raising Trig. Could even be-heaven forbid!--that Sarah wanted Bristol to become pregnant to throw off suspicion that she (S.P.) had faked a pregnancy.

This family just leaves me shaking my head. No matter how hard I try, I can't make sense of them.

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SLQ

10/04/2011 12:33

Interesting that the trolls have taken a new tack: "don't be meanies" and expose the truth, because there's nothing to be gained by it.

Yes, there is plenty of corruption and lies by politicians, which is why it's important to expose them when we can. I'm sure the innocent lives of Nixon's family were harmed by his lies and corruption. Palin and whoever helped her (McCain? staffers?) for the good of their cause deserves to be outed.

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JJ

10/04/2011 12:39

Brad, I struggle with whether Bristol birthed Ruffles or the other Trig, but here's why I lean toward Ruffles being Bristol's. I believe the anon who said that Trig was born startlingly premature; they were worried that he would be blind and deaf, in addition to having DS. Like others have suggested, I wonder if he had drug/alcohol exposure. I think that is why they tried to substitute him with the big baby that the Heaths presented on 4/18. When people questioned his size, they went back to using Ruffles for awhile (photo from Bailey book)...maybe also buying them time to see how well Ruffles developed. I still think that palinpeytonplace.com makes a good argument for when they substituted big healthy Trig back.
Again, SP's Freudian slip - using the word "earforms" instead of earmarks - indicate that Ruffles was around for a long while. Why would they try to fix his ears if he was just a temporary loaner? The latest photo of Trig (with Tripp, with their arms around each other) - to me, looks nothing like Book Tour Trig - I wonder if this is Ruffles?

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rubbernecking

10/04/2011 12:51

2/28/08 SF Chronicle ran a story about her as a VP contender. Source: http://www.crivellawest.net/palinAll/pdf/12540.pdf

Also on 2/28 someone from AK called Rush Limbaugh's radio show to talk about her. Source: http://www.crivellawest.net/palinAll/pdf/12499.pdf

She received dozens of flattering emails asking her to run as VP in the week just before her pregnancy announcement. Someone was fanning this fire.

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JR

10/04/2011 12:56

I think Babygate has something to do with the preemptive Wite-Out story she told in Going Rogue - Sarah loves to mix up stories & dates to make everything blurry. When she found out McCain won the nomination the unfortunate incident in the fall of 2007 needed to disappear. I think CBJ helped her adopt/acquire an unrelated baby - and Bristol was pissed off because she had been forced into an abortion sometime in her recent past, hence the trying to get pregnant and ending up with Tripp. The rumors that Trig is Bristols actually help Sarah and that's why she lets them continue - after all, Bristol was pregnant in the winter of 2007-2008 at one point and if anyone found out how that ended - bye-bye VP. The Going Rogue Wite-out tale is just extra cover for an abortion somewhere along the way - Sarah can claim she told EVERYONE about the mistake on the form, just not who or when. (Just a new theory - I don't really care where Trig came from because I know where he didn't)

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Sunshine1970

10/04/2011 13:03

@search4more

Wow. If that really is the first time we've seen Palin with the scarf then this does lend some credence to what MeAgain has been saying, as well that the baby was born some time around or on Feb. 14th.

Oh, this is off-topic, but as I'm making my way through McGinniss' book I notice many instances of Sarah making comments about ducks. I don't have the book handy at the moment, but they all had to do with a mother duck and her younglings. It just reminded me about the saying Bristol mentioned on her MySpace page and being a 'mother duck.' I don't know if it proves anything except maybe Bristol was mimicking, maybe sarcastically, her mother.

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Rationalist

10/04/2011 13:04

Did not know about the "earforms" Freudian slip! However, it's hard to imagine Palin succeeding in such a regimen when she can't keep Trig's glasses on.

@Laura - I sent a long email last night that I think complements @Brad's theory. Any chance of posting?

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rubbernecking

10/04/2011 13:04

Laura interviewed a neonatologist about the possibility of FAS. The doctor did not see any evidence of FAS in the photos.

Brad, that is what I want to know (among other things) ... what did McCain (and his campaign staff) know and when did he know it? I am not sure a plan would have been afoot with him in D.C., but maybe with her to "cover" for Bristol were she to be asked to be V.P. candidate. More than likely she knew at that conference that she was on the short list and it has been reported that she met McCain for the first time on that trip. He has also referenced meeting her and that he was impressed with her, but I still get the impression it was a short, in passing, type of meeting. But then, who knows? Notice that even though she is wearing a scarf, she does not look pregnant, much like some photos taken later in March in Alaska.

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comeonpeople

10/04/2011 13:15

I still don’t know what to think and sure hope we know someday. I never had a problem with Bristol being the birth mother of a child with Tri-G. I care for many children with DS who have myelodysplastic syndrome or leukemia since DS kids are at risk for these disorders. Reflecting on my career, the I’d say that the mothers have been younger at least 70% of the time. Some are very young (teens and early twenties) and then a mix of thirties and early forties. The more plausible scenario in my head is that Bristol had a baby with FAS and other anomalies because of drug use. There were reports of her smoking oxy at a cabin and being visibly pregnant but that is all hearsay. The use of the word “DUCK” gives me pause because there was a commenter way back who said that one of Dar Miller’s favorite expressions was “Lord love a duck”. Dar was a NICU nurse with hospice experience. Perhaps she cared for a very ill baby of Bristol’s and knew too much. Then Sarah decides to turn lemons into lemonade and take possession of a Tri-G baby and now Bristol has to “mother that duck”. Probably doesn’t mean a thing, but none of this makes sense anyway. One can certainly see if Bristol did birth a Tri-G that Sarah took this as yet another sign that she has been anointed to be in the White House, just like the Dominionists told her. There are no coincidences for her. And there is the chance that the whole thing was contrived and the Tri-G is from outside the family as a ruse to cover for the FAS baby.
Occam’s razor I guess would support Bristol being the mom of Tri-G and Sarah taking matters into her own hands and claiming him as her own birth child.
I’m still disgusted by the role of CBJ and MatSu in the hoax and hope that they end up being our weakest link in cracking this case. Keep asking the questions. Why is CBJ still practicing obstetrics as listed on the internet if she is on record as stating the it is “not unreasonable to travel back” in a high risk pregnancy, leaking amniotic fluid and having preterm labor (more laughs, more contractions). That does not sound like a safe clinician to me.

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GhostbusterTX

10/04/2011 13:17

Interestingly, in October and November of 2007 Sarah took Bristol on two trips, to NYC and to Hawaii, both places known to have relatively few restrictions on abortion, including no waiting periods.

Those family portraits where Bristol is sporting a little extra weight in all the right places consistent with a just-starting-to-show pregnancy were taken in September of 2007.

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ginny11

10/04/2011 13:19

Not to brag, but this has been my theory all along *pats self on back*
LOL, but really, I agree with this theory 1000%. I've always felt that Palin does not have the foresight or the intelligence to cook up a hoax with a DS baby. I always felt that whether baby Trig was born early or on time to Bristol, his DS was a big surprise! I still think it's possible that there was an adoption set up that fell through when Trig was diagnosed with DS, but it's also possible that they were just going to keep Bristol's child "under wraps" till the VP was chosen. I still don't know what to think about little Tripp's mysterious birth and birthdate. I can't help but wonder if it's at all possible that the two boys are fraternal twins that were born a bit early. That seems pretty far-fetched though. I do know that Bristol did NOT look close to being in her last month of pregnancy in that video where she practically runs across ice to avoid the video and get into that church back in late 2008. (Sorry I can't find the link to the video!).

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diz

10/04/2011 13:23

This is a portion of my post on IM yesterday and seems relevant to today's thread.

My theory for some time is that Trig is related to 'one' of the Palins but none of the female gender. That would definitely be a pregnancy to hide rather than that of a rebellious teenage daughter. Society has changed and wouldn't have been aghast at the alleged first pregnancy much in the same way they weren't when pregnant Bristle was introduced to the public.

It would be so risky bringing all the kids in on this scam, one of them would likely weaken at some point and want to 'blackmail' ma/pa for some perceived adolescent slight. So I say, Mr/Mrs had a big secret to hide and the secret remains with them. Might explain all the purse-carrying. This scenario would likely include a hefty payoff to the birth mom to keep the whole incident a closely guarded secret.

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Primogen

10/04/2011 13:24

Remember Gina Loudon?

Loudon, a former candidate for State Senate who's become increasingly involved in Tea Party politics, did advance work for Palin in the 2008 campaign. The two developed a personal bond because both their children were born with Down syndrome.

Anon238/MeAgain did say that there was a photo of Trig dressed in a Valentines Day outfit, so he was likely born before, or on, Feb 14th.

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eclecticsandra

10/04/2011 13:49

Ron, there was a trip to Fairbanks on Feb. 14, 2008. SP and two daughters attended a heart association luncheon. I doubt that anyone was born that day.

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Susan

10/04/2011 13:50

You can use jpegsnoop to see if a photo has been altered. Immoral Minority has a photo of Sherry with Tripp in the hospital. Jpegsnoop says that the photo has been altered.

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daisydem

10/04/2011 13:52

eclecticsandra: on Palin's Deceptions, people tried and tried to find any pictures of Sarah and her daughters at the heart association dinner because I think Willow and Bristol were supposed to be there. As far as I know, no pictures ever surfaced.

I have seen at least one photo of her from the fall/winter '07 with a scarf so her staff probably weren't surprised to see her wearing them in early '08.

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search4more

10/04/2011 14:04

Normally at a wedding many photographs are taken. This was 2008 so you'd have to think there were posts on Myspace/Facebook/Flickr etc of wedding photos.

What were the names of the people getting married? They live in Hawaii or were just getting married there?

If Bristol was pregnant and did give birth in the middle of Feb then I don't even see how she could have attended the wedding. It would have been obvious she was pregnant wouldn't it?

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curiouser

10/04/2011 14:04

Brad - Pause this video--a March 5 news report of Palin's pregnancy announcement--at 04:13. If the stock video was taken anytime close to March 5, Palin has some 'splaining to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UAfBo1gNj8

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FrostyAK

10/04/2011 14:11

@rubbernecking "What are the odds there was a spare, tiny caucasian infant with DS available in AK on such short notice?"

Why on earth would you think the substitute baby had to come from AK? With all her Dominionist contacts, they could have had Ruffles here in hours, not days.

Since we have found the double bridge ear NOT to be so uncommon, I have once again questioned which baby(s) is the substitute. I would expect FAS to be the problem with any offspring born to Bristle during that time period, but we know how much expectations are worth when dealing with the TP's.

I'm thinking that Brad's hypothesis is getting closer to the truth, as so many new monikers seem worried they have to 'refudiate' it. Don't they understand that the more they post about us being wrong, the more we know we are headed in the right direction? Nah, they wouldn't understand that...

Hey $P, when is your head going to explode? Headline could read "Nukular explosion on Lake Lucille. Debris unidentifiable.".

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Anonfornow

10/04/2011 14:12

Audrey at Palin's Deceptions did a post figuring the probabilities for a young woman birthing a DS child vs an older one. While it is true that the odds of an older woman's baby having DS are much higher, it is so unusual for a woman Sarah's age to get pregnant in the first place that the odds for Trig being Bristol's are actually greater than the odds for Trig being Sarah's.

It's also true that with a startlingly premature baby, the DS would not immediately have been visibly apparent and no test would have been done to detect it without just cause. We have seen that Trig has a normal-looking palm, so that wouldn't have tipped them off.

My theory is that at first, Trig was in the NICU and they were still trying to figure out how to handle the situation if he lived. Then McCain emerged as the frontrunner, Sarah knew she was on the VP shortlist, Trig passed a danger point, his DS was discovered ( and perhaps Bristol turned up pregnant again). All of which tipped the balance and Sarah announced she was pregnant without Bristol's agreement.

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lobstershift

10/04/2011 14:15

A question that's always troubled me:
the only reason to have an amniocentesis is so that the mother can abort a fetus that's shown to have birth defects.
Amniocentesis carries risks -- it can cause a miscarriage.
If Sarah Palin is as religious as she claims, then she wouldn't have had the procedure, or known beforehand that she was going to have a Down Syndrome baby.
Why did she have -- or claim she had -- an unnecessary and risky procedure?

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Banyan

10/04/2011 14:19

@Brad

Your original first theory still makes much more sense to me.

The odds against Bristol becoming conveniently pregnant with a relatively healthy DS baby at just the right time to help Sarah politically is just too hard (for me) to swallow.

Now, it is possible that someone as young as Bristol could give birth to a baby with DS (I think the odds are something like 1 in a thousand).

But you are wrong to suggest that young women are not tested for DS. Today, most women, of any age, who have conceived a DS baby know about it prenatally if they have any prenatal care at all.

There is a blood test that is routinely done to screen for indications of some problem with the fetus. If this test is positive, all women of any age are offered further testing to rule out DS, among other problems.

In other words, it is no longer true that young women are unaware of DS in their fetuses (if they getting even halfway competent prenatal care.)

Sarah -- at her age had a 1 in 10- 20 risk of conceiving a DS child.

To serve as a good, sturdy, iconic political prop, "Sarah's" baby had to have not only DS-- but a relatively healthy and high-functioning form of DS. No other disability would be nearly as useful as a prop.

Cerebral palsy and other common developmental disorders of prematurity, such as autism and mental retardation, cannot be reliably identified until late
infancy or early-mid childhood. ( I am the mother of one such child and know whereof I speak.)

Cerebral palsy, etc., is not evident in small babies -- at least not in a way that will be recognizable by the public.

More importantly, cerebral palsy cannot be prenatally diagnosed, therefore it offers no chance for prenatal CHOICE. (and this is the crux of the Palin myth)

You mentioned multiple sclerosis. This is not, to my knowledge, seen in infants.

Other disabilities such as rare genetic disorders would not have the instant public recognition that DS has. And the baby couldn't be just ANY DS baby.

Instead, a relatively healthy DS baby must be guaranteed. Many with DS are NOT otherwise healthy and must stay in intensive care for months, or years, often undergoing quite a lot of surgery.

Spina Bifida, on the other hand, is the one other disorder that could possibly have been used instead of DS, since it is usually diagnosed prenatally offering a CHOICE (along with prenatal surgery which would have sidelined Sarah for quite some time.)

But spina bifida is not nearly as iconic and identifiable among the public as DS. Children with spina bifida do not have identifying facial features, and, as with preemies, their disabilities also do not become apparent to an outsider until late in infancy.

Sarah's political usefulness absolutely depended on the scenario that she knew beforehand that her baby had a problem -- DS -- and that knowing this, she still CHOSE not to abort. This part of the story is absolutely crucial to the Right-to-Life myth she and her handlers were promulgating.

I think Bristol had a baby in the winter of 2007-8. That baby may have been born very prematurely and may be the baby known as Ruffles.
If MeAgain is to be believed (and I tend to believe her) Bristol has been pregnant many times.

This particular pregnancy provided a possible cover story for Sarah. If her DS acquisition/birth hoax were ever revealed, Sarah could always pull the martyr act saying she was just covering up for Bristol.

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curiouser

10/04/2011 14:20

search4more - The Palins are so sneaky. We can't verify that Bristol went to Hawaii. None of the flights to or from Hawaii are on the official calendar. They used the excuse that they had to turn the water off at the Governor's Mansion to leave Juneau and block out her calendar. Bailey writes about a secret Hawaii vacation and that he made the arrangements for Sarah to return early. I got the impression he was talking about a trip during the '08 legislative session but, perhaps, he meant the wedding trip.

The wedding was a month after the Oct. 8 New York trip. I'm in the minority--don't think Bristol looks visibly pregnant in the MTV video--so she may have been able to camouflage a pregnancy in Nov.. My reasoning re the MTV video is that I see her wearing an in-style babydoll top which the girls on either side of her are also wearing. I don't see a belly pushing the top out.

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search4more

10/04/2011 14:30

curiouser,

The clip in the video looks like it's from 2007 to me. It's just stock video they pulled up. They could have chosen a clip from any time. I think she is wearing her old glasses in it. Also she is thinner. One of the things that always gives me pause is that during the period when she is supposed to be pregnant she is actually fatter than normal. If you look at pictures of her in 2008 and after the pregnancy or in 2007 she is thin. I don't know why this is. One possible explanation was she was pregnant. Another is that she was stressed out by the lies and comfort ate. Another is that it was purely coincidental and had no bearing on anything.

That said, I also don't think he's bright enough to keep little fibs straight, nor does he care enough to think about such things.

Look at how many tiny lies fill the pages of DITH, things that the average Joe should catch upon reading a rough draft even once.

Boys like him are simple. As long as there are no obstacles between them and their passions (in Levi's case, hunting) life is pie.

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Mrs Gunka

10/04/2011 14:35

By the time I got to the replies, I forgot what I wanted to say! :-0
Oh, yes... if Sarah knew about this fragile preemie with DS when she met with McCain at the Governors Conference in DC, she might have told him about it and said she and Todd were thinking about adopting him as Bristol and Levi wouldn't have the maturity or money to pay for his hospital and care. She didn't want to ruin their lives so she could fake a short pregnancy and it would capture the Fundie vote. She wouldn't announce the pregnancy until after she was officially chosen. Bristol would be able to take care of her baby while Sarah worked on the campaign. At this time she probably didn't know that Bristol was pregnant again and they had to come up with the wild ride when the baby was released from the hospital, albeit a tad early for her to deliver "her" pregnancy. Then when Bristol told them she was pregnant again, they had to come up with a story that made sure everyone would know that she didn't give birth to Trig also, so the "tight abs" was her explanation that she didn't show and she used the scarves to hide she WASN'T pregnant. They had to announce at the convention that Bristol was pregnant "5 months" and had to bolster her breasts to hide the large belly to 5 months size. Think there were many in on this to pull it off after Sarah was chosen and they knew about the babies. Does that make sense?

Probably the biggest obstacle was convincing the people in the Governor's office, she was "pregnant"! The Gusty photo was to show the FUNDIES she was pregnant and it wasn't released till much later. She took the empathy belly to Texas (in her luggage) to show the other Governors she was pregnant. The Fundies and Governors were not aware of her "tight abs" as they had scrubbed all the photos when they "vetted" her. These two groups wouldn't have known about the anti-Palin blogs that were tearing her down. The MSM was told not to write/talk about it! FOX didn't so why should they! She would put down anyone who mentioned it.."They think I didn't have Trig!"...then smirk! How crazy was that!

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Becki Ann

10/04/2011 14:38

search4more,

Sarah's drastic body change from Sept 07 to Dec/Jan 08 did catch my eye as well. In the official family portrays, she looked beautiful and slim. The highlights helped to give the fresh look too I am sure.

In some Dec videos, she looked like she had gained a pooch belly and her face was paler and her hair had less highlights. Her pooch actually seemed to grow slightly and at the irondog I noticed her red coat DID extend out at the abdomen, whereas any other time she's worn it the coat simply falls.

These were my observations back then and they remain.

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mary

10/04/2011 14:38

Interesting post. Sometimes when I can't sleep at night, I think about babygate and think: How great would it be if I had a huge ephiphany?!

So far, no dice.

Regarding RNC Trig vs. Debate Trig, I just looked at pictures of Willow holding Trig at both events and he looked roughly the same size (to my eyes, anyway).

As Laura says, nothing adds up when it comes to the Palin family. Which is why I'm not too confused by Gryphen's recent posts regarding Levi's book. I mean, OF COURSE nothing makes sense! Did we really expect it to? I have faith, though, that someday, someone will publish an account of this hoax that DOES make sense and then this will all be over.

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Betsy S

10/04/2011 14:40

LizH @ 11:51 has nailed it. Also comeonpeople @ 13.15. Ruffles was Bristol's FAS tiny baby, not too attractive a candidate for any RTL promotion. This baby was photographed being held by Levi (bleached tips) in hospital, at the baby shower, cover of US Star (ear damages hidden), and the Palin kitchen. The baby in a sling pictures at work, at podium, etc., could have been a doll. One picture shows a baby's unprotected listless arm hanging out, another video shows SP squeezing what should be a baby's head. A much bigger DS baby was acquired for the RNC, no relation to Ruffles I fear.

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Maveeeeerick

10/04/2011 14:43

curiouser,

In the emails, Sarah references returning early from Hawaii because she felt bad about leaving the special session. There WERE controversy amongst legislators about her leaving as well. And we KNOW that her adversaries criticized her at every turn no matter when. When Sarah and Todd went to Track's grad in Jan 08, she asked her asst to just block out the couple of days and NOT write Tracks grad so people wouldn't talk.

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DS

10/04/2011 14:44

If Ruffles and Trig are the same child...could the photos in the Palin kitchen and the shower photos have been taken at an earlier date? The pics of Levi and Mercede holding Trig in the Palin's kitchen could have been taken in February or March when Trig was brought home from the hospital. And just because Sarah says the shower happened in May don't make it true. When Sarah pretended to give birth to Trig in April, and they realized they couldn't pass him off as a newborn anymore, they brought out the pics which were taken several months earlier. The older pics are published and the problem is solved. By the Sept. convention, Trig looks big because he is actually 6 or 7 months old instead of 4 months.

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Aces Indi

10/04/2011 14:45

The only proof I have that Bristol went to Hawaii in Nov 07 was a recent facebook convo with Alex Fagerstrom where he wrote "Im going to Hawaii this Nov. Maybe youll be there a couple hotels down like last time."

She replied "hahaha that was funny we were on the same island like couple doors down."

I paraphrased that but that was what it was

It mirrored the emails between Sarah and Erika written back then in Nov 07.

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Aces Indi

10/04/2011 14:46

DS-

But the people mag photo shoot shows the same baby and that took place in June.

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Banyan

10/04/2011 14:48

@anonfornow

My theory is that the planning for Palin as VP and the DS baby hoax started very early among the Dominionists.

The Dominionists knew for years either Romney or McCain would be probably be the eventual nominee, and that either of these two men would need a charismatic Fundie- type to run as VP to bring out the suspicious Base.

From what I've read and heard, Michele Bachmann, was also in the running for the Veepstakes, but Sarah won on style points.

I think the DS pregnancy plot was in the planning phase quite early on (2006-7), but was actually put into place ONLY when McCain agreed to the choose Palin for his running mate.

McCain, I've heard, WAS NOT HAPPY that Palin was forced on him in February 2008 by Paxson and the CNP Fundies. McCain, whose temper is legendary, really went ballistic at first, but ended up caving.

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charo

10/04/2011 14:49

I'd like your opinion on this theory: I wondered why Levi would say that SP was leaking amniotic fluid for a month. It wasn’t necessary for his book. Where did he get the idea? I think he was thinking of Bristol. Instead of mono being the reason for leaving Wasilla, I think Bristol was admitted to a regional high risk pregnancy hospital when her own membranes ruptured. That is why no one saw her.
The American College of Obsetricians and Gynecologists produces practice bulletins/guidelines for OB care. It is used not only by obstetricians but family doctors etc. It is considered “standard of care”.
In the ACOG Practice Bulletin: Number 80, April 2007 Premature Rupture of Membranes, they outline the management of PROM
"Can preterm PROM be managed with home care?
Generally, hospitalization for bed rest and pelvic rest is indicated after preterm PROM once viability is reached. Recognizing that latency is frequently brief, that intrauterine and fetal infection may occur suddenly, and that the fetus is at risk for umbilical cord compression, ongoing surveillance of both the woman and her fetus is recommended once the limit of potential viability hasbeen reached. For a woman with preterm PROM and a viable fetus, the safety of expectant management at home has not been established."
Therefore not only would SP have been told to stay put, she would have been admitted to hospital. So why did she travel? Because, she was NEVER pregnant and was never leaking amniotic fluid. Levi got the idea from Bristol’s own pregnancy. I'll go further and say Bristol delivered early and when SP took the baby, Bristol was determined to have another.

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WTH

10/04/2011 14:50

Bailey writes about a secret Hawaii vacation

Did he say "secret" in the book? Because in a personal fb conversation I had with him, he mentioned they went to Hawaii at the end of the legislative session in the spring, which would have been late March.

I chalked it up to memory lapse but now I dont know. I havent found anything that supports them being in Hawaii in 2008. Have you all?

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rubbernecking

10/04/2011 14:51

@search4more, another emails referred to the Nov 2007 wedding as the "Minnick wedding". Source: http://www.crivellawest.net/palinAll/pdf/18479.pdf

@curiouser, Palin exchanged emails about Bristol meeting up with the son of her Juneau house mgr while in Hawaii. Source: http://www.crivellawest.net/palin2011/pdf/21778.pdf

@FrostyAK, I'm not sure if your question is in jest. If there was no tiny, causasian baby with DS in Alasksa, then, yes, someone would have to bring one in across state lines. In other words, someone had to locate and transport a fragile infant for a private party with the Johnstons and for a Wasilla baby shower.

Which photo sessions did the Palins control? The Chuck Heath session, the 4/22 office session, and the People Magazine shoot. Which baby was used when the Palins sought publicity?

Did the Palins intend to release the kitchen photos? No, it seems they were unaware these photos were on Levi's sister's myspace page.

Did the Palin intend to release the baby shower photos? Probably not. The Ok! magazine that printed the photos quoted someone named Susan Krueger. Did Ms Krueger sell these photos to OK! magazine? According to Bristol's book, there was a large turnout at the baby shower. Many people might have taken photos. Any number of guests might have sold/shared the baby shower photos with OK! magazine.

Why would someone borrow a baby for private gatherings but use a different baby for formal publicity shoots? I don't see how this makes sense.

I am in this boat as well. She sits pretty easily, she's wearing a seemingly tight skirt, she looks smaller than she did in July 07, while sitting her belly roll look smaller than it did while sitting in the candid Govs mansion pics.

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TF

10/04/2011 14:56

I have never in my life seen a mother hold her baby the way she held him. It was brutal. I show more affection and concern carrying my dog.

Exactly. I have never beleived SP gave birth to Trig. For me, the March photos are supplementary, supporting evidence. What really nailed it for me was his size at the RNC and the way she handled him.

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curiouser

10/04/2011 15:04

Bailey's book p222-3: “When, after a vacation to Hawaii, they needed to get back home on the q.t. (because Sarah had decided to vacation during the all-important legislative session, a potential PR disaster), Todd knew I was their go-to guy: Hey Frank, Sarah is debating whether or not to return to Juneau today or tomorrow."

I initially interpreted 'legislative session' to mean the regular session beginning in Jan. '08 but there was a special session in November '07.

Does anyone recall if Levi ever mentioned going to Hawaii with the Palins?

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Brad Scharlott

10/04/2011 15:08

Curiouser: Note that she did not tie the scarf in that Jan. pic -- it is open and does not cover middle -- so that may just be a case of a scarf as a fashion accessory -- it was not hiding anything

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physicsmom

10/04/2011 15:20

Brad, your theory meshes with the one I have held all along. That says we commenters should post our ideas multiple times along the way, as new readers come into the fold. My thought was that the plan was for Bristol's baby to be adopted out, but once he was born prematurely, and found to have DS, Sarah decided to take him on as a badge of Right-to-Life honor. The story Levi tells of $P asking to adopt their child makes so much more sense if he's talking about Trig than Tripp. Further, I've held that Bristol said "no" but Sarah went ahead and started the scarf-wearing, then announced her 7-month pregnancy when McCain clinched. Bristol was furious, but unwilling to "out" her mom.

I believe that Bristol then got pregnant out of spite (sort of confirmed by Levi's bio), but I can't be sure exactly when, because I don't buy the 5-month gestation extolled at the RNC Convention. That part doesn't really matter anyway. We need to expose the big hoax, Palin's fake pregnancy - a big time gamble that paid off.

P.S. I didn't want to accept the possibility that the Trig or Tripp had been drugged when appearing on TV, but Laura's suggestion that Trig was deaf really opened my eyes. That would explain why he was so unresponsive at the convention and other times he appeared in noisy venues. Tripp, however, is another story, since he seems to have no hearing deficiency.

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Brad Scharlott

10/04/2011 15:21

FrostyAK: Nice takedown of Rubbenecking on the Ruffles question. Rubbernecking: I leave it to others now to point out your obvious attempts at putting up roadblocks.

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Brad Scharlott

10/04/2011 15:27

Anonfornow: Wow, all of that sounds credible and maybe even likely.

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carollt

10/04/2011 15:31

And one cannot forget that Sarah announced her "pregnancy" on the day that John McCain wrapped up the nomination.

Well, one factor to consider is DS is actually not uncommon among younger teens -- a 15-year-old has the same likelihood as a 35-year-old (I've researched that). So a 17-year-old would be less than 1,000 to 1 odds of DS, but exactly what the odds are has never been worked out , as far as I can tell. Still, a long shot.

Sometime after Sarah's gubernatorial win in AK there is a meeting/visit with a Christian/Evangelist/Dominionist poilitical bigshot who off-handedly says something like 'too bad none of your kids have special needs - that would have automatically put you at the head of McCain's VP short list.'

This takes place sometime between September 2006 and December 2007 but I no longer have links to the dates and names involved. (I'm betting someone out there has the correct info to add.)

It has always been a part of the discussion that this 'idea' given to Sarah was the beginning of the hoax. There are even a couple of emails between the two (Sarah and this religious leader slash political wannabe king maker) in the batch of emails recently made public that elude to this being true.

Having grown accustomed to Sarah's obsessive behaviour patterns, some of us have speculated that the remark made to her by this religious mentor hatched the idea of a plan that grew more and more appealing to her as time went on. One thing we know for certain about
Sarah - she can be like a dog with a bone when it comes to getting something she 'wants'. And back then - she wanted the White House win. So this all fits.

I guess my question about the two babies would be this:

Sarah purportedly took trig to work three days after giving birth. That's back in April. In May the photos of Ruffle Ears bub are made public.

It's a long time between May and September when Trig is shown to the country. Did Sarah continue to take the baby to work everyday in the interim?

If she did, how was the size difference explained between the two babies to the people who saw him every day? Wouldn't someone have noticed the switch?

Or did she suddenly stop taking the baby to work with her, thus creating a month or two when no one saw the baby?

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myrna nichols

10/04/2011 15:44

I need to say something about the odds of a woman having a DS baby. When we bought our house, one of our neighbors was the mother of a DS boy, her first born. She and her husband had him while they were both still in college. In those days, there was little therapy, and many of those kids were institutionalized. She worked with him morning, noon, and night, achieving more than most people did at the time. She also went on to have three more kids, all born without DS. Young mothers do give birth to DS kids.

The MySpace records of Bristol from 2007 indicate drinking, alcohol use and a party life style, In May, 2007, Sarah took away Bristol's phone because she thought that her daughter was pregnant. Bristol described herself as a stoner. What kind of baby would that kind of girl give birth to? It is hard to tell Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Down Syndrome apart, based on appearance. The DNA test is what is required.

We do know that a baby was born whose sight and hearing were badly affected. That child, whether DS, FAS or a combination of the two, would be a poor candidate for adoption. Putting Bristol out of the public eye, hiding her at her aunt's house in Anchorage, followed by a quiet (church) adoption may have been an initial plan. Born with FAS, DS or the two would complicate that.

Those stories of Sarah bothering Levi and Bristol to adopt their child makes sense in terms of a disabled child. There is a conservative woman radio host who adopted a DS child, and she gets very good publicity for it, a great model for Sarah to follow. It would make even more sense when McCain received the Republican nomination. The behind the scenes talk must have warned Sarah that she was on a short list, appealing to the religious right. If only she had some more Right to Life credentials.

I've got your Right to Life credentials right here, and here he is. Sarah's announcement of a pregnancy literally took Trip (born prematurely, fighting for his life) away from Bristol. I have seen the pictures of two babies, one frail baby with a ruffled ear and a plump pink baby, far more robust and healthy.

I am willing to make a wild guess that the frail baby was found to be suffering from the effects of drug and/or alcohol, maybe in addition to DS. Sarah could not be the mother of that baby. The baby may have had serious health issues, been institutionalized, or worse. An anonymous writer at IM claims that a premature baby was born who was both blind and deaf. He would have a hard time surviving.

But the story of the DS child had been told, and Sarah had already penned her birth announcement from God. They needed a baby to fill that bill. I wonder why we never see Trig photographed wearing his eyeglasses and hearing aids. There is more mystery here than can be resolved in a few paragraphs.

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elizabeth

10/04/2011 15:45

I think what is important to remember in any scenario is who we are talking about here. This is a woman who ONLY thinks about herself. Her children are just tools and props to further her sick ambition. And don't forget she was verbalizing that insane ambition to be President back when she first was elected mayor of podunk Wasilla.

If we start from that basic premise I think we have a better idea how and why this scenario played out.

The question I think Laura and Brad both are grappling with is, what came first; the DS baby or the unbridled ambition? Well we know the answer to that.

But here is the real question. Would Sarah Palin have been picked for McCain's VP candidate WITHOUT her DS baby? I say no. Think about it. What did she have to offer really? A pretty face? Really? These are repugs we are talking about. They don't even really like women, especially anywhere near big-boy power. We must never forgetthat the #1 reason Palin was recruited was to appeal to the RW Fundies who really, really didn't like McCain. The only thing that Palin really had that appealed to the Fundies were her pro-life creds. Seriously, what else did she offer? She was a lousy mayor, lousy governor, not really bright and coming from Alaska, a little strange and unknown. But the one thing that demonstrated her pro-life creds better than anything any Republican kingmaker could have thunk up in their wildest wet dream was the fact that she gave birth to a DS baby. A baby that "Liberals would have had her abort!" (Her words - not any liberal I've ever met or known.) (And frankly everything I know about Ms. Palin now, I think she is the first person who would abort a DS baby.)

So I see where Brad and Laura are going on this but I, like Ms. Palin, don't believe in coincidences too much. And the fact that Bristol coincidentally happened to have a DS baby when the one thing Palin needed to have worse than anything else, was a DS baby, just seems a little too coinky-dink for me.

I think Bristol has her own sad story to tell and I don't know if it includes Trig or even how many pregnancies this tragically neglected young girl has really had. But what I do know is that Sarah Palin needed a DS baby to cement her chances for VP nomination and the day after McCain won the nomination she was 'miraculously' pregnant and more miracle or miracles just two short weeks later(or at least it seemed like that) she gave birth to a full-size, yet premature, yet very big and ruddy, yet not so big and very fragile, perfect (except for strange ears) UNABORTED baby with Down Syndrome!

I think Bristol is the red herring. I think Trig is all Sarah's creation, except she never gave birth to him - she just acquired him because he is exactly what she needed.

It doesn't really matter who gave birth to Trig - although I'm sure that is a sad story somewhere. What matters most in all of this is that Sarah Palin did not give birth to him naturally. I think that when the truth is finally known the calculated political coldness of the Trig saga will make even the most cynical of us shudder.

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KMR

10/04/2011 15:53

I opened two windows to take a closer look at the baby Sherry is holding on the IM post.
http://tinyurl.com/3ghs7ck
And also the baby Levi is holding from an earlier post of Laura's.
http://tinyurl.com/3gpasnu

Do you think it's the same baby? And would the hat color change from one day to the next? Possibly but not probably.

Also, great conversation Laura and Brad.
Sorry if this is a repeat. I'm only just catching up.

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rubbernecking

10/04/2011 15:56

Jeez, Brad, are you serious?

I listened to the Ginny Loudon interview posted in this thread. She says it took YEARS to locate an adoptable child with DS.

So yeah, I think your theory suffers because it does not address the odds of quickly locating another DS baby when some blog comments say the first baby is the wrong size.

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FrostyAK

10/04/2011 15:59

In case anyone is interested, here is a full listing of the ethics complaints against $P during her part-term in office. It may or may not have any relevance to the baby hoax discussion.

Posted more for anyone new to the discussion than those who have been following for years. The ones marked pending may have since been settled.

As Brad says, Oy Vey is right! Elizabeth, you articulate this so well. You all do, actually, as we struggle to decide what came first: the chicken, the egg, the scarf, or the Ds!

But why wouldn't a new baby be a liability for a candidate? "Oh, you're going to have a baby in a few months? Well, thank you for stopping in to the Willard hotel this afternoon. Good bye." Why would any candidate want a running mate with a 4 mos. old?

Unless, unless...he didn't know, or he new too much.

As a pregnant woman, Palin was a liability. As a woman pregnant with a Ds baby (either she or her faking it for someone), she was pure gold.

I wish it was as easy to tell the difference between Trig and Ruffles.

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Molly

10/04/2011 16:21

Exactly Laura. A woman with a four month old baby would be a liability...unless that baby had DS.

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Ivyfree

10/04/2011 16:29

"Note that she did not tie the scarf in that Jan. pic -- it is open and does not cover middle -- so that may just be a case of a scarf as a fashion accessory -- it was not hiding anything"

She probably already owned a number of scarves. Otherwise she would have had to go out and buy them. And if you're going out to buy scarves, why not buy a couple of maternity outfits and make it look good? I've always thought she had a few scarves already, and just used those.

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Ottoline

10/04/2011 16:39

My thoughts are turning to putting together three different scenarios: Brad's sounds great. So does Elizabeth's. Add a third.

The common data point in all three is SP was not pregnant with Trig.

Brad: I say put out a position, that SP hoaxed us (give the photo proof that she was not pregnant); give the three theories and the plusses/minusses of each one, and let the chips fall where they might.

Again, I'd love to connect this up with the "Fred" version, if there is in fact any. Is it possible for you and IM to collaborate on this? A joint-blogger statement would be a first, and it would show how far blogging has come, esp when the MSM is derelict or suppressed.

I think going public with slightly wrong details might be fine, esp if you are the first to point out the wrong details (noting that there is a vast overabundance of details to choose from)-- and also the impossible-to-dismiss non-pregnancy of SP.

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Jolene

10/04/2011 16:41

Haven't (and won't) read "Going Rogue" by Palin's ghostwriter, so am in the dark about the "pre-emptie Wite-out story" mentioned by JR. I've seen references to the "wite-out" story in other blogs and have no idea what it means. Could someone please please enlighten me on this? I'm trying to make sense of this Babygate Hoax theory and many of the complications make my eyes glaze over. But I'm trying to understand. Really hope "The Wild Ride" by "Fred" mentioned by Gryphen so many times will be published soon, preferably right after Screech throws her bumpit into the ring.

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jk

10/04/2011 16:44

Seems like as good a place as any to ask:
Do any of the folks who have paid close attention to the 2007-2008 Wasilla hillbilly timeline have any thoughts on the following possible birthdates for Trig: 12/12/2007, 2/11/2008, 2/21/2008, 2/26/2008? Those are the dates of interest that emerge from the SSDI research. I had to drop it for a while (darned that day job), but hope to get back to it soon. Relevant info re: the dates above would be helpful!

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Ottoline

10/04/2011 16:47

lobstershift -- points about the amnio:

--Our only source that anyone had an amnio is SP, so it could be untrue.
--SP said it was an amnio on her, but of course that's impossible because she was not PG.
--An amnio harvests DNA, so one can do a paternity test (with a different test on the DNA), so if "unacceptable bioDad" was so unbelievable that it had to be confirmed asap, could not wait until birth (for the usual noninvasive DNA test) -- this would be a way to do it.
--The amnio SP reported was done too early, per most guidelines for safety and accuracy.

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Brad Scharlott

10/04/2011 16:54

Banyan again: Henry Blodgett just could not swallow the bigger conspiracy scenario you paint, and which I had leaned toward. But you do make the case very well.

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rubbernecking

10/04/2011 16:58

Would McCain really know much about four months olds, with or without DS?

Isn't possible that McCain was actually interested in having a weak/distracted VP because he didn't want any Cheney-style machinations? His handlers told him he needed to excite the Christian base to win the election. While DS made the story more compelling, I'm going to guess that any number of baby stories would have worked with pro-life voters.

Any number of baby stories would have been more exciting than Lieberman as VP.

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FrostyAK

10/04/2011 17:01

A few statistical questions:

1. How many DS births are there in the US and other countries with mostly white populations each year? (TriG doesn't necessarily have to be from the US) How many of those are up for adoption? This in order to figure out how easy it would be to obtain a baby with DS on short notice.

2. How many FAS births are there each year? How many of them are put up for adoption or institutionalized? I still think Bristle's lifestyle would lead to FAS. It is at a high level in the Native population here.

3. How many FAS plus DS births are there each year.

4. Does alcohol and drug abuse up the odds of DS?

In addition to kids with DS, I have had contact with a few with FAS. IF MA (and others?) is to be believed about the current behavior of TriG toward $P, then that is much more common with FAS. Lack of current pics validates the allegations. The kids with DS seem to be very loving toward people in their lives, including strangers. They can be stubborn, but are easily distracted and behaviors modified.

Obviously DS better fits $P's self-adoring- portrait of herself than does FAS. FAS would mean that she is at best an incompetent mother... if Bristle is the mother of TriG.

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Brad Scharlott

10/04/2011 17:14

I just had a talk with an Alaskan who told me many Russian babies get funneled by churches through Alaska. His point was that finding a white DS baby would not be that difficult.

Which brings up the chocolate lab emails. Hmm.

Elizabeth, you are a very fine writer. You and Banyan and my Alaskan friend have got me chasing my tail.

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ptarmigan

10/04/2011 17:20

'Beth'=troll. At least this site doesn't have as many as IM. IM is crawing with them. Prof. Scharlott,
I think you're on to something with
theory.

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JR

10/04/2011 17:21

Re: wite out story. Sarah tells a story in Going Rogue about a miscarriage. She says that the billing came written as "abortion" which was whited out and "miscarriage" written over it. I call bullshit. That is a preemptive strike to cover for an abortion. One, medical billing paperwork is not ever whited out and two never hand written. Who can read under Witeout regardless? She made it much more heart wrenching than I have described, and now she can say I told about that billing mistake in my book...

About the amnio: Regardless of the results of an amnio Sarah - as a pro-lifer - would have had the baby anyway - so the amnio itself (risky to an unborn fetus) would have been totally pointless. To be able to say in hindsight, however, that 'because of an early amnio' she had months to mull it over and talk to God about it fit right into the image she was busily creating of herself.

The wite-out story comes about when Sarah tells the tale of having had a miscarriage in a hospital where the billing came back to her with the word 'abortion' wited-out and replaced with the word 'miscarriage'. Nobody believes the story as no proper medical billing personnel would sanction altering (using wite-out) the reason for a medical prodecure. As these are legal records, they would produce a new, correct document instead.

It's also entgirely possible that Bristol had a bub prematyure with Fetal Alcohol syndrome and in the traumatic first days Sarah convinced her to let the baby be adopted (as a ward of the state all medical bills would be taken care of) and then turned around a couple of monhths later and adopted the child herself - causing Bristol to become really mad at her mother and telling Levi they would be getting pregnant, leading to the 'that baby was supposed to be mine' (or however it was worded) quote from Levi in his book.

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NSG

10/04/2011 17:29

Excellent work, Brad & all.

I just want to chime in with a couple of considerations that I'm pretty sure I haven't seen in these comments....

1. Lots of discussion about Levi's obvious affection w Trig at the RNC. I agree, and it struck me then and since. NOT typical for a teenage male towards his GF's mother's new baby. BUT, conversely, I AM struck by his apparent lack of action wrt visitation with Tripp. I know it's not conclusive -- plenty of bio-dads sit on the sidelines while their kids grow up. It just makes an interesting, contrasting bookend at this point, vs his tenderness toward RNC Trig 3 years ago.

2. Someone else mentioned somewhere (sorry, it blurs) that SP's pregnancy provided not only RTL cred but also further evidence of her sexuality, which has clearly been one of her keys to GOP success. She's fertile! She has sex! Whenever I think of the nauseating sexual hold she has on some of her followers, I'm ALWAYS reminded of Rich Lowry at The National Review on 10/3/08:

"I’m sure I’m not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, “Hey, I think she just winked at me.” And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America."

Triple blergh.

Anyway, a coupla thoughts for this amazing discussion.

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comeonpeople

10/04/2011 17:36

@Jolene,
In Going Rogue Sarah wrote that she suffered a miscarriage but when she got the bill white out was used on the form or something like that and abortion was written in or whited out....so people have been using white out as a euphemism for abortion. Many problems with this: white out is never ever used on medical forms or bills. The proper way to fix an error is to cross a line through the mistake and then initial the mistake and write the correction. The theory is Sarah had an abortion for real and whited out the form herself to show Toad the bill and she put this needless information in her "autobiography" to keep ahead of any gossip that she had in fact had an abortion. Also too. This is the gist of it, I may be off alittle bit. I got GR for a buck but dont want to go search for the exact words right now.

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Cyn

10/04/2011 17:38

A few thoughts, Anonfornow I think you are very close to the truth. Just feels right.

Laura I assumed the "sofa bolster bust" was a sports bra. Then I wonder, if the RNC spent $1000,000s on clothes for the Palin's,why not a decent bra for Bristol?

Another thing if the late Dec due date for Tripp is correct Bristol is pretty big at early 6months for a first time mother. If Levi's claim that Trig was due in mid Jan, Bristol is really huge for a first time mom.

I wouldn't get attached to the FAS theory. The original paper on FAS has been discredited because the sample used were homeless women who drank everyday to the point of passing out. The women did not eat on regular basis or have any prenatal care. I am not saying it's ok to drink while pregnant,just saying there is more to the story/study. A double blind study just isn't possible to with FAS.

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Rick

10/04/2011 17:38

"But here’s the flaw in that logic: it overlooks the likelihood that Sarah would have found a way to help herself politically from virtually anything that happened to be wrong with Trig. "

But here is an exception to the above statement and one that fits with what we do know. If Trigg was really a fetal alcohol syndrome baby, and not a DS baby, that is something even the most fanatic followers would have a hard time accepting. That fits this situation on many levels. We know Bristol abused alcohol and drugs. We have heard that Sarah blamed Bristol for ruining her chances at higher office. It would also explain Ruffle's ears. And it is much more likely for a teen girl to have a FAS baby than a DS baby. And it likely wouldn't be known until the baby was born. Maybe when Bristol was hid away and the rumors were flying she was PG, the Palins thought they could adopt the baby and Sarah could pull a fake pregnancy off and nobody would be the wiser. But then the baby was born and it was apparent the baby had FAS. Sarah couldn't fake she'd had an FAS baby as that would make her look totally irresponsible and downright criminal. That would never do, so they arranged for that baby to be institutionalized and found a DS baby to adopt. And Sarah looked like a hero for not "aborting" her handicapped child. Plus if anything actually came out about the FAS baby, it could be explained away with a DS baby.

And in an odd way, it could explain Bristol wanting to become pregnant again in a couple different ways....revenge on her parents, maternal instincts that kicked in with the first pregnancy, or even proving to herself she could produce a "normal" child. It would take a team of Psychiatrists to figure that one out.

To me, this is the only theory that fits what we know and what we think we know.

And it gave Bristol, and to an extent Levi, leverage over Sarah and Todd. Which would explain why Bristol gets all the preferential treatment and Star status with mommy's help. Fun trip while it lasts I guess, but some day the chickens will come home to roost.

Why do people keep saying that the Palins are hanging Trig's medical expenses over Levi's head..if either Sarah or Bristol had him, he could be covered with the Native health since he has Indian blood from Todd"s or Bristol's linage.

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Jolene

10/04/2011 17:47

To JR, OzMud, and comeonpeople--Thnx for the explanation about the wite-out story! Wow! Did she really try to get away with that tall tale? Did anyone still even use wite-out in 2008? I don't think so, especially not an insurance billing company, or hospital. I have never ever seen such a thing. How hard it must be for her to keep track of all her lies. And like Lilly said in a comment, if she weren't so busy trying to undermine all the good our President is doing for the country, and grifting her poor followers, we wouldn't give a darn about what she's done or how happy her family is. I truly hope Palin does enter the presidential race just so all her lies will catch up with her and the whole world will know they've been conned. (Well, some of us haven't been conned, have we?) Thanks again! Maybe I will read "Going Rogue" if I can find a really cheap copy somewhere, but it would be like reading comments at C$P, stomach-churning.

I love this blog!

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froyo

10/04/2011 17:55

"We do know that a baby was born whose sight and hearing were badly affected. HOW DO WE KNOW THIS

That child, whether DS, FAS or a combination of the two, would be a poor candidate for adoption. I HATE A HARD TIME BELIEVING A GIRL WITH A STRONG NURTURING QUALITY WOULD PUT A BABY OF HERS UP FOR ADOPTION.

Putting Bristol out of the public eye, hiding her at her aunt's house in Anchorage, followed by a quiet (church) adoption may have been an initial plan"
BRISTOL WASN'T HIDDEN IN ANCHORAGE EVER. THERE ARE RUMORS SHE WASN'T SEEN MUCH IN THE END OF 2007.

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jk

10/04/2011 17:57

Banyan, for what it's worth -- that is, nothing ;) -- you continue to have one acolyte. We've gone in circles a million times and your theory is still the only one I've heard that can explain why and how there were two babies who looked somewhat alike, born close in time -- without appealing to wild coincidence. The question is, is there any hope of getting traction with an investigation? If the theory is true, would anyone in the know ever talk?

FAS do not have to be institutionalized...I have a cousin in Alaska who could not have her own children and adopted a baby girl with FAS. She was a Native baby from one of the villages. I remember when she brought her home she had to keep her on a breathing monitor at night and the have very sensitive nerves and can have seizures.

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NSG

10/04/2011 18:09

I've heard the "white out" stories and the "abortion" references before, but I thought I'd mention this, in case it hasn't come up. Depending on context, the word "abortion" CAN refer to a miscarriage.

What the general public calls "miscarriages," have traditionally been referred to by medical professionals, fertility folks, demographers, etc., as "spontaneous abortions." It's one of those things that completely FREAKS OUT the pro-life folks because "abortion" automatically signifies evil.

Here's wiki: "In medical (and veterinary) contexts, the word 'abortion' refers to any process by which a pregnancy ends with the death and removal or expulsion of the fetus, regardless of whether it is spontaneous or intentionally induced. Many women who have had miscarriages, however, object to the term 'abortion' in connection with their experience, as it is generally associated with induced abortions. In recent years there has been discussion in the medical community about avoiding the use of this term in favor of the less ambiguous term 'miscarriage'."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscarriage

In case it helps. This is one of those things that we shouldn't be too quick to scream hypocrisy on without being sure of the particulars.

Not a troll, I promise!

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Cyn

10/04/2011 18:10

I am no fan of Levi's, the reason he is not pursuing visitation with Tripp is probably money. It doesn't matter what the custody order states, if Bristol drags Tripp across the country. If Levi doesn't have the cash to take Bristol back to court there really isn't much he can do. The court will not step in unless one of the parties brings a case. A good family lawyer isn't cheap. IMO

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serena1313

10/04/2011 18:13

@ Banyan

I tend to sort of agree with you on the point that the Dominionists were likely involved with the DS baby scam to some degree, but it was only after they saw the opportunity did they seize it. However, I disagree that it was pre-planned to the extent that they knew McCain or Romney would eventually become the RNC nominee.

Yet I do agree with what you insinuated in that they pressured/forced McCain into asking Sarah to be his running mate. It is a well-documented fact that McCain wanted Joe Lieberman, but the far-right religious folks said they would only deliver the Evangelical vote if he picked Sarah Palin, notwithstanding their plan failed miserably, thankfully.

Other than that, Sarah, being known for going off-script, simply made the whole thing up. That is a given ... at least IMHO.

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lazrgrl

10/04/2011 18:34

Ozmud, that's what doesn't make sense to me as well. When I was pregnant at 39 the doc said unless you'd consider an abortion I won't even do an amnio. So considering the risk to the fetus, plus she wouldn't have aborted, why the amnio? Of course it was done way too early by some reckoning, but that's another story.

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molly malone

10/04/2011 18:39

If the odds are 1 in 1000 that a younger woman will give birth to a D.S. baby, that's pretty darn high odds against Bristol giving birth to Trig.

Add to this that Gina Louden said it took her and her husband 3 years to find an "adoptable" D.S. baby--one whose problems were not so severe as to require institutionalized care--and the odds of Bristol giving birth to an **adoptable** D.S. child would even be considerably longer than 1 in 1000.

Then plug in the odds of Bristol accidentally getting pregnant and giving birth to an **adoptable** D.S. baby precisely when S.P. needed one in order to solidify her right to life creds, and we're looking at odds so long they're way out there in the stratosphere.

So I'm inclined to rule Bristol out as the mother of Trig.

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Katie Taylor

10/04/2011 18:40

Hospitals and physicians do not use the term miscarriage as that is not a clinical term and as such doesn't have either a CPT medical procedure code or ICD9 or 10 diagnosis code so her "white out" story is a flat out lie. The correct term is in fact abortion (involuntary in the case of miscarriage or voluntary). It's been a lot of years since I had to deal with the specificity of these codes and terms but I don't think things have changed. Perhaps Palinoia can weigh in on this for us. This story is indicative of how Palin has managed to fool so many people for so damn long. The MSM or LSM as she calls it refuses to do their job and push back on some of her fantasy stories. The "white out" story raised a flag for me the minute I heard it because of my background but certainly there is at least one reporter out there with some background in medical coding or at least have someone in their circle who could clue them in.

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jk

10/04/2011 18:52

serena1313: It might not have been clear in 2006 or 2007 who would be the nominee, but it was a reasonable bet that it would be a relatively moderate Republican. Also too, Palin DID deliver the Evangelical vote. In the red heart of red states there were more than a few "Palin-McCain" signs. The minor miscalculation is that Palin was such an idiot & nutcase that she alienated every other voter who had previously been on the fence. Maybe McCain would have sunk himself anyway with his "the fundamentals of the economy are strong" remark, but if the coffin needed one last nail, Palin was it.

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Up

10/04/2011 19:00

We are talking about a woman who forced her only son (at that time) and first born to enroll in the military and possibly go into a war zone for reasons of political expediency, as documented by McGinniss. I'd put nothing past her. So the lemons-into lemonade story appeals to me.

Re Palin's shot at vp, McCain couldn't pick a white male running mate. His team advised a woman to appeal to PUMA voters, disaffected by HClinton's loss. His behavior to his own wives prove McCain is misogynistic. Makes more sense that he'd gravitate to the hot governor over a woman with more gravitas and fewer push up bras.

How many months is it between fishing season and the birth of Trig?? Is it possible Todd/Track were sewing some wild seeds in Dillingham and the women/girl would not, could not keep him, she threatened to tell and Todd/Track took the baby and the Palin's paid her off, then try to adopt him out but it fell through so Todd/Track had to step up and keep the baby. Sarah started wearing the scarves and belly to cover for Todd/Track and they kept little fling secret from all of the rest of the family and friends. Could this be part of the reason she is not motherly towards him and treats him like her prop? When a Native baby is adopted, a family with Native blood has preference over a non- Native family. Just a thought...

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NSG

10/04/2011 19:04

New MeAgain, right up this obstetrical alley, so to speak...

Sarah is licking her wounds because I quoted a redacted portion of one of her emails and now she's scared to death wondering how MANY of them I have and WHICH ones they are.

Sarah, I heard Tiemessen's water cooler gossip is that you had PAC staff leak this "filing deadline inquiry" in order to deflect attention from the fact that your PAC expenses are not going to add up with your PAC expenditures.

And this is just hilarious to me...Sarah mentioned to several people that she was nervous Gryphen or Laura would look at her executive schedule from the last month of her "pregnancy" and look at all the flights she took while she was supposedly "leaking every day". I think she is the one who TOLD Levi to include the details about leaking daily for weeks...to make it seem like traveling after she started leaking in Texas was less risky. But as usual, she didn't think it through and now is stuck having to explain why she flew twenty thousand miles while "leaking" every day.

And also as usual...if she had kept that botoxed trout yapper shut and not called attention to it, nobody would have caught how Levi's revisionist account of Sarah's obstetrical woes were seriously "conderdicted" by Sarah's official schedule.

Elizabeth, Palin had more going for her at the time of the Republican primaries than just the pretty face. Remember she had 80% popularity and she was getting attention about the pipeline and was doing things like speaking on Charlie Rose about energy. I can't see her arriving at the conclusion that "giving birth" to a baby with DS would clinch the VP spot for her.

BUT, If I did go with your idea, and believed Palin decided she had to have a baby with DS, then I wouldn't put it past her to have a surrogate do the pregnancy for her. For vanity reasons, or because she really didn't ever sleep with Todd or intend to but got him to "contribute," or her tubes were already tied, or all of the above or something else. That leaves Bristol off the hook as Trig's mother, explains why Trig looks like a Heath/Palin, and maybe explains why CBJ was willing to write the way she did in the Nov.'08 letter. I don't know what the baby's birth certificate would look like with surrogacy--does anyone?

I hate to say it but after all of this time there are still only two things I'm certain about in this hoax: Palin did not give birth in 2008, and Ruffles is not the same child as the Trig(s) presented at and after the RNC. Beyond that, I'm nowhere.

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Lilly

10/04/2011 19:25

I just wanted to say that I don't find it surprising at all that the only blog that attracts trolls is IM - that this one and politicalgates are pretty much frequented by regulars and the occasional new commenter.

I believe it's because Gryphen sensationalizes stories and is first to report rumors, hoping they turn into fact. Sadly for him, they rarely do.

I find this blog for the most part mature and a place where inquisitive people ruminate on the topic of the day. So thank you all for not stooping to IMs level.

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Perplexed

10/04/2011 19:30

A baby with Down syndrome was clearly an asset to Sarah Palin as a candidate for McCain's running mate, but she had no way of knowing in March that she would be the vice-presidential nominee in August. All of the evidence from the campaign reporting suggests that McCain selected her at the last minute, without thorough vetting, in a desperate attempt to attract the conservative religious base and women who had supported Hillary Clinton. Does anyone seriously think that Sarah Palin was capable of the strategic thinking and determination necessary to plan a politically motivated baby hoax with no guarantee of success? If she had any political motives for engaging in a hoax, I think it much more likely that she was trying to protect her reputation--as a mother and a Christian family-values politician--in Alaska.

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jk

10/04/2011 19:37

@Lilly: irony much?

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FrostyAK

10/04/2011 19:38

Ya know, whether Me Again is the real deal or not, she sure is good for a laugh.

Oh, this week has been brutal again, work wise, so I am STILL working on Part II. Done soon, hopefully in the next day or two.

@ Katie - yes, I absolutely agree re: "white out". THAT is a complete fabrication on Palin's part, white out is NEVER used on medical records, and further more, one would never receive a bill from a provider with the actual diagnosis spelled out, much less whited out.

The medical terms are: "spontaneous abortion" which is a miscarriage, or "elective abortion" which is an "abortion" as we all generally think of abortions.

With a miscarriage, or spontaneous abortion, it may be coded as "complete" or "incomplete". Generally with an incomplete spontaneous abortion (miscarriage), there will be a follow up procedure (usually a D & C) to minimize hemorrhaging and finish what nature started.

I'll address some other stuff in my next post.

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Ottoline

10/04/2011 19:41

I recall a credible-sounding "expert" some time ago telling us that FAS was very unlikely in a teen doing substance abuse; that it usually happens in chronic, daily, heavy-duty abusers who are really way farther gone than a partying teen, no matter how rambunctious that partying is.

I also read that FAS incidence is 2 in 1000, vs Ds incidence 1 in 1000. And we've once again had commenters saying that a Ds baby fits SP more than it does BS: that's true in the chances of conceiving a Ds baby. But it is also true that young women birth many more babies than older women, so the vast majority of Ds babies comes from younger moms. Also older women who conceive Ds babies tend to abort 90% of them. These are just stats I've picked up in reading. If anyone has better ones, pls correct.

People also keep wondering whether this or that causes Ds, and I believe the current medical answer is that there is no known cause.

But the main thing is that you can't use these probability stats to extrapolate backwards. The 1:1000 event happens to someone.

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Up

10/04/2011 19:42

she can be strategic. She knitted together a coalition including bar owners, alcoholics and Dominionists to get elected mayor.

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katie

10/04/2011 19:44

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OneMorePoint

10/04/2011 19:46

Question for any of you with some legal knowledge: If a minor gives birth, are her parents or some other adults required by law to be the legal guardians? If someone is under 18 and not legally responsible for them self, it would stand to reason that they could not be responsible for another child, even if giving birth.

Does anyone know how this works?

I was thinking that legally, Sarah was able to take that child and was the legal guardian and there was nothing Bristol could do about it.

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Palinoia

10/04/2011 19:54

My comments on February 15th date further up thread:

February 15th, 2008 importance: This was the Go Red Luncheon in Fairbanks. There was MUCH discussion about this luncheon on Palingates because of the weird travel arrangements for Piper, Willow, and Bristol, and the appearance that Bristol was attending last minute. If I recall right, her travel wasn't scheduled at the same time as Piper/Willow. Further, I believe this was ANOTHER instance of Sarah inviting her girls instead of the organizers inviting her girls.

At the end of all the discussion, no photos could be found (still to this day) of this particular luncheon, and so, it has never been proven conclusively that Bristol was actually there. Maybe that's because she was still post partum?

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Ottoline

10/04/2011 20:07

Palinoia -- That's my memory of that lunch too, plus the idea that there might have been someone standing in for Bristol, impersonating her (the thinking was that it would have been easy to do, and that would also explain why no photos). Of course the tantalizing thing is that some attendee at that lunch must surely have a photo of Bristol or her impersonator at that lunch. And perhaps does not know it, or perhaps does not want to make it public.

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Katie Taylor

10/04/2011 20:08

Lilly, I agree with your assessment of IM. Gryphen has hyped so many stories that were about to break that would bring resolution to baby hoax but they never seem to have the impact that had been hyped. He had aligned himself with Shailey Tripp hyping that she would be revealing some big news and yet now that she is posting again and asking for help in publicizing her plight he has kept his distance it seems and has not highlighted her new postings that I am aware of. He hyped impending posts that Mercede was going to have and I think she did do one or two but there was nothing in them to advance babygate. His latest hype was that if Levi's book didn't reveal certain information he would be forced to step forward and reveal important information that he has been keeping mum on. He has done part I and II on the Levi book so I guess part III will include the important information he hyped. I think the fact that posters can comment anonymously on his site contributes to the low quality of the discussion. Some of the comments are so juvenile and you simply can't convince the majority of folks over there that Bristol, Willow and Sarah aren't frequent posters at the site. I think, given his tendency toward hype, his silence on the growing frequency and tone of MeAgain posts not to mention the specificity of some revelations about the happenings in the Palin camp (which I for one believe are fictional)is hard to reconcile. What could generate a silent response from one not predisposed to silence? MeAgain has commented that Gryphen may not do anything with the information she/he is sending him or may not even acknowledge the receipt of the material which would be ok with her/him. This is just one more thing that raises a flag for me. I try not to wear my tin foil hat so often but some days it's just impossible.

UP said "she can be strategic. She knitted together a coalition including bar owners, alcoholics and Dominionists to get elected mayor"

Given the 70+ churches in a town of 7000 people, Sarah probably could have won the election with just the evangelical community of Wasilla. Her right wing religious views didn't become a liability until she ran for governor.

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Cracklin Charlie

10/04/2011 20:21

I hate to keep playing the same tune here, but in my mind, there can really only be one place where the two boys, Trig and Tripp, came from.

If a person were to try to come up with the simplest explanation of why there are two toddlers in the Palin house, what would that explanation be? Bristol would be the biological mother of both children. At that time, there were no other candidates for motherhood in the house.

The only photos of the boys as newborns that I would say with any certainty were not likely tampered with, show Levi Johnston, Bristol's boyfriend, gently holding two different tiny babies, at two different times in Levi's life. I have not seen any other photo of Levi with a tiny baby that can be dated later than May of 2008. I have never seen any picture of any man other than Levi holding either one of these children as newborns.

Young girls have DS babies, and Sarah Palin was pregnant after Piper was born. Sarah's daughter got pregnant, had a baby, and got pregnant again right away. Sarah, as per usual, panicked, and the hoax was born.

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molly malone

10/04/2011 20:27

To tag onto what I said up-thread regarding the statistical improbability of Bristol being Trig's mother, I'd like to add that I'm not ruling out the possibility of Bristol giving birth to a baby prior to Tripp. I'm just saying I seriously doubt she birthed Trig.

Way I think it went down was that Trig--wherever he was born, or whoever he was born to--was born prematurely around the same time S.P. began wearing scarves. No abdominal padding--just scarves. Reason being, should the baby fail to thrive or prove unsatisfactory (for whatever intended purpose), the scarves could provide plausible deniability of any pregnancy. And at the same time, should things work out just spiffy, those same scarves could be claimed to have hidden her pregnancy. In short, I think she was in a holding pattern here.

Waiting...waiting...to go either way.

Then McCain cinched the nomination, the D.S. baby was a GO, and now Palin became "pregnant" in earnest. Problem is, that premature D.S. baby was now too large to pass for a show and tell preemie.

Enter Ruffles.

I'm still idling in neutral with regard to MeAgain. But s/he and I are in agreement that Ruffles was a rent-a-baby, who surfaced briefly to attest to Trig's small size and prematurity, and then disappeared, never to be seen again.

Anyway,I'm hanging in there with Banyon, Elizabeth, Frosty, and whole bunches of folks who know that something that smells off is rotten somewhere.

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Palinoia

10/04/2011 20:29

Re: Brad's epiphany....

I'd like to remind everyone, we are all working on hindsight, and with incomplete information regarding Babygate.

My pet theory has always been that A) the hoax wasn't hatched years ahead, or even very far ahead, and for solely political purposes, at least not the DS part. Sarah is all about Sarah, and I really feel that since she was actively putting herself on the VP / Washington Elite radar, back in 2007, that she had designs on climbing the political ladder, without question. As a Christian, right wing politician, "family values" is one of their mainstay platforms. A pregnant, unwed, teen daughter from an abstinence only dominionist family is NOT a politically expedient road to higher office.

Remember Sarah is all about her IMAGE and HERSELF. If she had a pregnant teen daughter, and was actively positioning herself for higher office, I'd hide my daughter out (at my sister house?) while she was pregnant and keep her out of sight. This apparently DID happen as Bristol wasn't seen publicly for awhile the winter of 2007/2008.

Time frames, point to scarf wearing starting 2/14/08, and Search4More said this was the same date that Romney endorsed McCain. I believe Trig was already out of someone's oven by then, and the plot was being hatched by Sarah in order to protect her political aspirations going forward "just in case". To blow it at that point would have removed her off of the short list for sure. Then, 2/25/08 she actually meets McCain, and emails are a flyin' about her being the short lister. Then he wins the nomination, and on 3/5 she pulls the trigger (so to speak) to be "pregnant" but is really co-opting Bristol's child as her own. Problem solved.

I certainly believe that it DID occur to herself and possibly her "circle" that a DS baby, once known, could be played to her extreme advantage, and they were off and running with that. That could very well be what was going on between 3/5 and 4/18. Gotta do some research, and get her story straight about how she found out about the DS, what testing she had done, etc. We all know how that went, right? Nothing made sense about her story.But then, as Brad indicates, ANY condition would have been spun to her favor, and so the Wild Ride would have been some other story, just as embellished no matter what condition she was dealing with.

Sarah = selfish narcissist who has everything to gain by hiding Bristol being pregnant, and not much to lose by doing so (really).

Two babies - well, that's just up in the air for me, other than I do believe there were two babies without question.

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Avidreader

10/04/2011 20:45

In April 2007, WA state Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers gave birth to a boy with Down Syndrome. Shortly thereafter, she 'introduced' him on the floor of the Capitol building, to a standing ovation. Google and find the picture. Would stir the heart of any Palin...

Now check the Palin emails. search for McMorris. Find the congratulatory email from the Congresswoman, now on the Energy Committee.

Your notion of Sarah seeing gold when she first laid eyes on Trig is, I think, spot on.

Check out McMorris in your spare time: Palin with training wheels, but much more potential.

@Perplexed - Sarah was strategic enough to fire anyone who disagreed with her and hire on only those people she could count on to remain loyal - both as mayor of Wasilla and Gov. In fact, many of her appointees are still in office - still covering for and protecting her.

The point about her not knowing in March sh4e would be appointed in August though - there were religious people in the background with political clout making promises to her - she just shored them up with producing a DS baby.

At the end of the day McCain and his staff were 'told' what sort of running mate to look for - the description they were given lead them straight to Sarah - so while the staffers thought they'd just stumbled across her fortuitously - they'd actually been played like a piano.

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rubbernecking

10/04/2011 21:03

@FrostyAK, you asked how many DS births are there in the US.

According to http://www.ndss.org, there are about 6000 DS births in the US per year.

The theory on today's main post suggests that the Palins borrowed a DS infant smaller/younger than the photographed hospital baby. So realistically, the Palins would have needed a baby about 2 weeks old. So how many 2 week-old children with DS are available in the US at any one time? About 115 (6000 births/52 wks). How many are white? About 77%, according to US census data, or 88 children.

Of the 88 children, about half are female. So across the entire US, there might be 44 white male children with DS approximately two weeks old.

How would the Dominionists know where these two-week old children are in the US? How would they know which ones appear small enough to be premature--but are also robust enough for travel to AK? How would they know which were unwanted and did not have an adoption lined up? How would they know which were under the control of social workers willing to "loan" a baby?

Most states don't even finalize a birth certificate until 3-4 weeks after birth. There's no obvious place for Dominionists or CBJ to get information about where to find 2-week old DS infants. Finding children this young on short notice would be very, very hard.

Due to prenatal care, most women are making an informed choice when they give birth to a DS child. The Loudon story shows there is strong interest in adopting DS children. In the 1950s there may have been many DS infants in foundling hospitals but this was not the case in 2008. Most DS births today are wanted and chosen.

It's true that people adopt causasian children from overseas, but again I think it would be very difficult to get a two-week-old infant out of a foreign country, including Russia.

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SLQ

10/04/2011 21:11

OneMorePoint asked, " If a minor gives birth, are her parents or some other adults required by law to be the legal guardians?"

Minors mostly have few rights. Parenting is an exception, as it is considered a "fundamental right" under the constitution. Because of this, mothers, whether teen or otherwise, have the absolute right with regard to the child. The parent of a minor has no say. The mother can decide to keep her baby, have an abortion (though some states require parental notification), or give the baby up for adoption.

On the flip side, parents of minors have no responsibility to help care for the child if the teen mother wants to keep him or her. So, if the mom wants to keep the baby, but has no support, she either has to find a way to support herself (food stamps, welfare, medicaid), and she risks state intervention.

But, no, parents of teen moms can't just assume guardianship without either the teen mom's consent or state intervention (dependency, i.e. state guardianship of the child, or termination of parental rights.) Termination of parental rights is a last resort, usually only after extreme neglect or abuse, or extended heavy drug or alcohol use.

Family influence and fear of not being able to support the child can, however, be a very strong motivator. (It occurs to me that Sherry Johnston's arrest would have effectively removed the option of Levi and Bristol living with her, if they were the parents.)

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SLQ

10/04/2011 21:16

I realized I didn't explain one thing well: Under the Constitution, as interpreted by years of Supreme Court decisions, parenting is a fundamental right. As such, the state cannot take away parental rights without due process of law, which for a fundamental right means the state has a very high burden of proof. As such, the state cannot make a law that automatically takes away the teen mom's right to parent and gives it to the grandparents. To take away the parental rights requires a long legal process, and the true parent, if she wants to keep the child, can even then meet certain criteria (parenting classes, drug treatment, etc.) to keep her child.

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LizH

10/04/2011 21:18

Dear Ottoline,

As an adoptive mother of a FAS/drug exposed baby - it can happen at any age.

In fact, the adoptive parents that I have spent the past decade in support groups, the majority of the severe FAS/drug affected infants have happened to young mothers (under the age of 25).

I also have dear friends whose adopted children have declined on the downward spiral of the middle aged mother's FAS/drug abuse, in otherwords their 20 year old is challenged, their 18 year old is extremely challenged and their 15 year old will require 100% care.

Yes, drug and alcohol use are devastating to the fetus, a teratogenic. I have several US/Canadian experts if Laura and Brad would like for me to contact them for private input. There are numerous cases that speak to "it only takes one drink." For those birth mothers that binge, self medicate, or choose other drugs - I can point you to thousands of adoptive parents that can attest their children have been born to teenage parents "using".

It totally is believable that a young teen, unmanaged, and out of control with drug and alcohol use, could give birth to a FAS/drug exposed baby.

Speaking from experience, I wondered why my 3 month old adoptive son looked like my next door neighborhood playmate of some 20 years ago. Once you realize the facial characteristics of some FAS indicators, it suddenly makes sense.

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Liz

10/04/2011 21:31

There have been some comments about the presumed difficulties of obtaining a DS baby on short notice. Don't forget Sarah's connection to Franklin Graham. There are religious homes for unwed mothers all across the country. If you do a Google search you will find cases where young women were told that their babies were stillborn, only to learn later that the babies survived and were adopted.Stranger things have happened.

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Anonfornow

10/04/2011 21:34

Am I the only person who remembers that at some point in the spring of 08, Sarah said in an interview that she probably wouldn't be able to accept a VP nomination because she would have a newborn?

I wish we could find that. I think the date would tell us a lot about what was happening with the baby hoax.

I also think that statement suggests that having a DS baby was not part of some big conspiracy, but simply a reality Sarah fell into.

Could Sarah really be clever enough to realize just how far she could ride Trig? I'm not sure she is. Because the truth is, having a handicapped baby should have ruled her out; there is no way she could do an adequate job mothering that child and still be VP. I hope people don't think that's a sexist remark. I'd also wonder about a man in a similar position.

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SLQ

10/04/2011 21:40

Anon for now: I believe that's in Joe's book. I've been reading it off and on since it came out, and I'm sure I remember that. If I find it, I'll let you know, but I have it on Kindle, which makes it harder to look. Maybe someone else can pinpoint it?

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Liz

10/04/2011 21:56

I can't find it right now, but I seem to remember that Bristol told Levi that she was angry when she found out that he was the father. That doesn't make sense regarding Tripp, if it was an intentional pregnancy. But could it refer to a different pregnancy and a test that was really a paternity test, not an amnio or a combination amnio/paternity test ? Usually there is kernel of truth hidden among the deceptions.Can you imagine being a member of this family and having to keep all the tales straight in your mind ?

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FrostyAK

10/04/2011 22:03

@rubbernecking - thanks for doing the legwork on finding the number of DS births.

Since we have no idea if Ruffles was male or female, let's stick with the 88 number.

Since FAS and Down newborns may have similar facial features, how many FAS babies might have been available during that time? Remember, this was a short term rent-a-baby, so no need to be too fussy. Who'd notice?

The Dominionists are for producing as many fetuses as possible, so they might well have their fingers on the pulse of births at any given time. They fly in Lear and better jets, so transporting a 1 to 2 week old baby would not be all that much of a problem.

Now, IF the child we now know as TriG was born very prematurely (Jan, early Feb) to Bristle and might not live, all $P's problems would have been gone with the bathwater had he died. Also remember her asking about a prego governor long before any of this.

However, he lived, and a hoax had to be set up. There's the March 5 announcement of pregnancy, after McC was announced, and she knew by then she had a good chance of the VP nod. And he thrived much more than expected, hence the "premature" delivery on April 18. The Dominionists may have been looking for a stand-in since her announcement. Once the picture with Heaths hit the ADN, many people knew that was NOT a premature newborn they were looking at and said so. Enter Ruffles, whether procured instantaneously, or a couple of weeks ahead of the 'delivery' of the 'puppy' at MatSu. Enter the Wild Ride fiction.

Something for us all to consider - if Ruffles was brought in a couple of weeks before needed, WHO was taking care of him/her? WHO in Wasilla would be equipped to take care of such a small frail child? WHO is no longer with us?

If Ruffles was procured after the 'delivery' and the ADN comments, that would explain why they might have had to take a baby with deformed ears.

All this is just thinking out loud. Maybe someone else can add to it. Or destroy it.

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Ottoline

10/04/2011 22:11

LizH -- Thank you for your important input. I was hoping someone who knows more would tell us about FAS. I know that my understanding of pregnancy was zero drinks (and even the fewest possible or different prescription meds) are mandatory. So I was surprised by our long-ago "expert" opinion, but I believed it.

I'm aware that there are FAS facial indicators -- do any of the Trigs you have seen suggest FAS to you? My sense is that no one so far has said yes, except very speculatively.

Thank you again for your input.

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Ottoline

10/04/2011 22:41

My first thought when I heard the Bristol quote "I wish he weren't your baby" was "red herring alert" -- because this isn't the kind of quote one usually repeats to anyone, ever. And this was before we had such conclusive documentation of all the lying in the family.

Of course I could be wrong. But if I were trying to convince someone I was carrying his baby, and he suspected it was someone else's baby (and let's further say it WAS someone else's), then this sounds like a plausible ploy. Except that it's the sort of comment that would never be repeated -- yet it was, for all the world to see. Making it seem suspicious to me.

In other words, another example of a "factoid" that we cannot accept or reject. It's there, but is proof of nothing. So many such factoids.

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Banyan

10/04/2011 22:42

I have to agree with Cyn above who expressed skepticism over the existence of "fetal alcohol syndrome."

The medical basis to "FAS" is very uncertain and carried out in retrospect.

I do think alcohol decreases brain cells in affected children, as it does in adult drinkers.

But "FAS" cannot be identified at birth by any specific features or signs or symptoms.

The only possible exception would be if a mother shows up at delivery raving drunk, then alcohol might be found in a fetal toxicology screen. But a positive screen for alcohol in the baby does NOT automatically indicate "FAS, since most alcohol-exposed babies grow up indistinguishable from their peers.

The "FAS" facial features -- to the extent they exist at all -- are not easily visible at birth, especially preterm birth.

Most "FAS" is "diagnosed" by assumptions based on what is known about the mother's behavior during pregnancy. In other words, once a mother is suspected of being an alcoholic, or even of drinking per se, then ANYTHING that goes wrong with the baby is blamed on "FAS." This is not science!

Otherwise, "FAS" would not even be suspected unless a child experiences developmental delays in childhood.

If "FAS" is suspected, the child may be brain-scanned and found to have abnormal brain structure. But that STILL isn't diagnostic, since all preemies have some degree of brain damage, but most preemies are not alcohol exposed. Same with fullterm babies, though their scans are not as abnormal as they are in preemies.

The features of "FAS" also look nothing at all like those of DS!

If I were asked to pick out someone who exemplifies the "FAS" look, I'd suggest Sen. Mitch McConnell (R, Kentucky) who has many "FAS" features, and, in my opinion, the low intellect to match.

To sum it up, "FAS" is not comparable to, or in any way similar to, DS -- which is a REAL syndrome based on a chromosomal abnormality that is easily and definitively diagnosable at birth.

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rubbernecking

10/04/2011 22:44

@FrostyAK, I know very little about FAS. Laura interviewed a doctor who said he did not see FAS symptoms in the kitchen or baby shower photos. The doctor said both babies had symptoms of DS.

I'm guess I'm still struggling why Palin would go to all this trouble and risk for the Johnstons and the baby shower friends. Didn't this group already believe in the magic uterus? The magic uterus that stays flat at 7 months and could be managed by mind-control on transcontinental flights? Wouldn't this crowd have also accepted the idea that a magic uterus can produce a magically robust premature baby?

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Banyan

10/04/2011 23:01

Also, too, the idea that alcohol exposure could pose a danger to fetuses used to be laughable (I was, in fact, laughed at both by my OB and my Mother-in-Law for having any doubts about alcohol consumption during pregnancy.)

In fact, alcohol given intravenously was used in attempts to stop preterm labor. Alcohol for pregnant women was thought to be harmless -- unless you got so drunk you fell off the barstool and miscarried. (Again this is an indirect quote from an OB-Gyn).

Anyone who has read Benjamin Spock's Baby and Child Care will remember that Dr. Spock advised nursing mothers to relax for breastfeeding by smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer. Thus the entire baby-boom generation was born and nurtured.

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Phyllis

10/04/2011 23:17

@Palinoia
Here's a email from Sarah to Ivy Frye on the 15th of Feb.

4:04 PM 15 Feb 2008 [ View original ]
from: Gov. Sarah Palin
to: Ivy Frye
Thanks and have a blast at home and with our most amazing supporters at Tara's party. Give
them all a big hug from me, and go ahead and add in a "rah rah" speech from me! Love ya,
travel safe.

Bristol says "we're in fairbanks and rye-rye is here. And get your hair very blonde",
willow says to add streaks.

On Sarah's schedule it shows that Sarah,Piper and Willow all left Juneau and flew to Anchorage. Then they along with Bristol flew on to Fairbanks.
Bristol left Sat.night,the 16th, going back to Anchorage and the others didn't leave until the next day.

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curiouser

10/05/2011 02:02

Avidreader - That's an intriguing thought about WA Rep Cathy Rodgers. I located her congratulatory email...one DS mom to another. She also noted that Sean Parnell was a friend. I wonder what and when Sarah first heard about Rodgers.

Now, let’s consider this scenario: that Bristol was pregnant end of 2007/beginning of 2008. As SP is supposed to be raising kids who practice abstinence, a pregnant daughter is an embarrassment – especially as she has her eye on the brass ring, the VP slot. So BP is hidden away at her aunt’s, where she will have the baby. Perhaps the aunt even plans to “adopt” BP’s baby and keep it in the family and BP will be able to visit the child whenever.

But the child is born early and with severe defects. The aunt backs away, unable to care for such a baby. The medical bills are daunting. The child is diagnosed with DS, which at first seems tragic – but then to SP it seems like a godsend, as she schemes away. If she has the baby, then she will seem like the most incredible woman on earth: a woman who is still fertile in her forties, who doesn’t let pregnancy interfere with her governing work or her good looks; a woman who walks the walk of the right-to-lifers.

And for those who think it seems like too much of a coincidence, I’m sorry, but I think we can allow for *one* coincidence in our scenario – and besides, I’m more or less with rubbernecking on this issue; I think acquiring a suitable DS baby would be difficult. I also think it would require a stroke of genius that I actually think is beyond Palin (and if I have misunderestimated her, I apologize).

However, I can imagine her thinking that God actually brought the baby into her family in order to encourage her to do this. I can imagine her pleasure with herself – her euphoria – as she concocted the plan. Making lemon out of lemonade. Turning tragedy into triumph.

And I think Ruffles was borrowed to play the part of a newborn. Everyone should be on the lookout for a toddler with deformed ears! If we find the real Ruffles we may crack this!

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Merry

10/05/2011 05:29

I tend to let mysteries like the origin of Trig sit quietly. I look for the simplest answers.

I think about the social network in Alaska, and about the desperation of people living in extreme poverty, who no less love and want a better life for their children.

I think about the little baby Trig being born sometime in late winter that year, somewhere in Alaska, in a close knit community of family and friends.

I like what diz; and lilli at 19:00:26; and elizabeth at 15:45:47 (about leaving Bristol out of it) said.

Todd has a large extended family. Or maybe Levi or Todd in Dillingham....

I think the answer is not very complicated, except that a tiny baby (with ruffled ears) was brought into the equation temporarily to be convincing because Trig had grown since late winter.

In any event, Trig(s) are fragile and need ICU care. They don't go to the office a couple of days later. Wherever they are born, they get transferred to neonatal intensive care units until the questions about their hearts and other vital organs are resolved and they are stabilized medically.

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LizH

10/05/2011 05:30

Hi Ottoline,

Speaking from experience, we adopted our son from a South American country. We had to meet with a doctor from the Embassy and get approval before we left the country with our 3 month old son.

When the doctor placed the stethoscope over his heart, we immediately understood that our son had special needs. We were told to get medical attention immediately when we returned to the States. It wasn't until 8 years later that our son was diagnosed with FAS and most likely cocaine/drug exposure. I have often thought the Embassy doctor knew of our son's exposure, but it was his way of saying get early intervention.

The exposure has affected our son's midline. Severe to profound hearing loss due to crainial nerve damage, bipolar stemming from frontal lobe damage, pulmonary stensosis, numerous GI challenges and recently severe scoliosis. We celebrate that he has two kidneys.

On the upside, he is a talented poet, a writer, participates in improv, he's traveled to Mexico, Serbia and Germany on high school student exchanges, and his freshman GPA was 4.0. It is entertaining to think that as parents we were going to teach our son everything we knew, it has been quite the opposite, in that he has been the Great Teacher. He is a dear soul.

I'm sure in the delivery room that there are signficant signs of exposure. In some books I've read they say the newly delivered babies smell of alcohol, but I don't know that for a fact. We ruled out cerebral palsy at 5 months due to flacid muscle tone. Our son couldn't hold his head up for his passport picture at age of 3 months. At 6 months we witnessed small seizures and upon the exposure diagnosis we were told this could have been withdrawls/DT like symptoms post utero.

When I see Ruffles, it just gives me a strong sensation of motherly protection in caring for such a weak, vulnerable infant. Just as we once held our son.

I'm going to be late for work. Toodles.

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jk

10/05/2011 05:33

Okay, we have 2 babies, 2 unknown birth mothers, and 2 unknown birth dates. The permutations are endless -- and very different scenarios seem to make sense, or not make sense, in about equal measure. I'm convinced there were two babies (Trig/Ruffles), and Bristol was the mother of one of them. I admit neither of these is proven beyond all shadow of doubt. Then we have anon432's report that "Trig" born to Bristol was startlingly premature. Do we believe this? Is there any other evidence beyond anon432? Seems to me a key question. We saw Bristol with a 3- or 4-month baby bump in 9/07, so a significantly premature birth would have been 12/07 or 1/08; probably not as late as 2/08. We've also heard from people who know about these things that Ruffles showed signs of having been a preemie, while Trig did not. Could the Ruffles we saw in May have been a preemie born as early as Dec. or Jan? I don't have enough experience with premature infants to know. It does seem to me that blue-sweater Trig, what I believe is the first sighting of RNC Trig, might have been born in Jan. or Feb. '08 but shows no signs of having been premature. I guess I'm thinking out loud here -- the question is, how do all of the theories square with the things we know or are pretty sure about, and the photographic evidence?

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Anonfornow

10/05/2011 06:53

New from Me Again at IM, talking about the redacted email MeAgain quoted that caused Sarah to go ballistic:

The email I quoted was the post where I asked Sarah how she thought people would react if they knew she had callously said "she couldn't find her butt with a map and two hands" about a cancer survivor.

I guess that's covered by "executive privilege" in Sarah's world.

I only have a tiny fraction of the redacted emails, so I wonder what stayed hidden. And some of the stuff that got redacted is pretty bad- like Sarah calling a minor "bitch". So that makes me INCREDIBLY curious as to what was held back altogether.

Truly, I can't imagine. If they redacted her cursing, belittling people, demeaning Todd, showing EXTREME lack of general political knowledge...what did they hold back? Seems like they would have just redacted everything rather than admitting several thousand pages were held back.

Even thought I only have a small amount of the redacted emails...in no less than four of them she demands to know who said something "right now". I think it's interesting that they redacted her petulance. I swear I keep expecting to find a redacted email which reads "you better redact all these emails RIGHT NOW!"

-MeAgain

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R

10/05/2011 06:53

Eureka! Brad! Great theory. I've been reading these blogs for years and your theory makes the most sense, and puts together the most pieces of the bizarre puzzle of Trig's birth. An early February 2008 birth fits Bristol's pregnancy timeline, which would be a June conception (supported by previous Wasilla teen quotes), her appearing about three months pregnant in the official September photos, leaving school soon after, and giving birth at the beginning of February, probably about five to six weeks early.

Then, after Sarah appropriates Bristol's baby in her March 5th pregnancy announcement, Bristol angrily decides to get pregnant again, this time intentionally, with an April conception and a January 2009 due date. A mid- December due date is announced to preclude Bristol as the mother of Trig, and then Tripp's birth is induced at the end of December 2008, about three weeks early, as Levi stated. About seven weeks later, Tripp is finally introduced, on Greta's interview show, looking about the right age. He could not be produced immediately as he was three weeks premature and might have looked a little too small.

Also, this theory explains the mysterious "Trig was Tripp before he was Trig" quote on IM. Bristol and Levi may have named their newborn son Tripp in February 2008 , and then Sarah changed his name to a similar sounding Trig, perhaps prompted by his medical condition and in thanks to wealthy backer Bud Paxson. Bristol reclaimed the name for her second son Tripp.

Your theory also explains Levi's tender expressions toward Trig at the convention as well as the photo of a very young Levi holding a tiny baby identified by his sister as Tripp, which would have been Trig's original name at birth. It explains why Levi and Bristol had to go to the hospital on the morning of April 18th, for Trig's alleged birth, as they had to bring their baby over there for the Heath hospital photo.

I cannot figure out why Sarah would need to borrow Ruffles for Levi's birthday party on May 3rd, which was very private, except that the not so private baby shower was the next day, and perhaps she had borrowed the ruffled ear baby for the weekend. Has Ruffles been seen any other times than the shower and on Mercede's MySpace photos? There is a photo of Levi holding two babies with one of the babies cut out. Perhaps that was Tripp I and Ruffles, rather than a relative's baby?

Thanks again Brad and Laura for a wonderful job. I hope this story is broken soon.

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Tôt ou Tard (Sooner or Later)

10/05/2011 06:56

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_Sas-i8mAM

[Running for VP] "an impossibility this go 'round," she says.
Chris Cillizza interview with SP, Feb. 2008. Which day in Feb., I can't find.

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DUH

10/05/2011 07:04

" Sarah was strategic enough to fire anyone who disagreed with her and hire on only those people she could count on to remain loyal "

Because this is SUCH a foreign concept. It happens everywhere in all fields. You might say it happens in DC most often, as selfishness is a prereq for living and working there.

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nenagh

10/05/2011 07:08

Great post & blog, Laura.. & Brad..

I've just started reading "The Rogue"..

and find I can only read about the Palins in small doses. Too toxic for me.

I'm following all these great ideas and one that has not been discussed, or maybe I just haven't seen it, is what possessed Levi to go along with Bristol's decision to 'get pregnant'??

1. He also lost a child to SP?

2. We see Levi as being loving with babies, but, thinking of my two sons, they don't seem to be rushing off to have a baby... and they are employed and *I'm not going to say could be making me a grandmother* **poor joke I know**

OK, that aside, what makes sense even psychologically for Levi to agree to having a[nother?] baby with Bristol?

Then one asks is Sarah Palin sufficiently vindictive to push some levers behind the scenes which may have outed Sherry selling Oxycontin and/or Levi losing a full time job, because he did not finish high school.

Did Levi acquiesce to one Palin and earn the fury of the Senior Palin's?

I 'feel' that Levi has 'a good heart' which seems at the opposite end of the spectrum to the heartless Grannie Sarah.

"While DS made the story more compelling, I'm going to guess that any number of baby stories would have worked with pro-life voters.

Any number of baby stories would have been more exciting than Lieberman as VP." -- Rubbernecking

I think this is exactly right.

Yes, a baby with Down syndrome would have been/was even more compelling a reason to select Palin as the VP running mate, the fact that a busy, accomplished (or so we were initially told) fortysomething governor who already had four children would *not* terminate a later-in-life pregnancy was itself a big old gold star in Palin's column.

Remember: Lieberman is pro-choice, and while he and McCain were legendarily best-friends-forever, the fundie voter bloc--and, most saliently, their leaders (and I am still convinced Paxson was one of them, if not the main one, given what he had on McCain)--made it quite clear to the senator that a Lieberman pick was a non-starter, whereas a pro-life candidate, especially a woman who (they thought) could pick up some of the disgruntled and disappointed Hillary voters, was the way to go.

I've always said it was about appealing to this segment of the conservative voting bloc. A look at the immediate jump in McCain's numbers when he first brought Palin on board will confirm this.

Finally, I agree with Elizabeth and AnonForNow, above, that Bristol is most likely Trig's bio mother and that his survival and diagnosis with Down's post-natally, in tandem with the enormous medical bills he'd surely be incurring as he grew, provided the perfect storm. In Palin's estimation, then, God had not only opened a door for her, he had mounted a few dozen flashing neon arrows on the corridor leading toward it, and unfurled a red carpet leading out of it into the sea of flashbulbs that would be her future.

"Why did she have -- or claim she had -- an unnecessary and risky procedure?" -- Lobsterfuture

Because Palin needed to be able to claim that she CHOSE to not abort that pregnancy, DESPITE knowing the fetus had Down syndrome. (Even though we know she was not pregnant at all in 2008.)

She made that bit up, too, because it underscored how exceedingly pro-life she was. And it worked: the fact that she was a mother of five, and that the fifth child was a baby with Down syndrome, was the among the first things out of the mouths of reporters that morning. One might even say it was a talking point they'd been supplied with!

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JJ

10/05/2011 07:28

Very interesting video, Tôt ou Tard-

The earliest reference I can find for it is Feb 26, 2008:

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/017129.php

That she said she was interested in national office but that now wasn't the time seems like one of the few times that she wasn't spewing a lie.
This does lend credence to the babyhoax being more seat-of-the-pants than well-thought-out plan.

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Brad Scharlott

10/05/2011 07:33

R: Thank you for giving me reassurance my theory is a strong contender. Several commenters had made such convincing cases for Trig being a non-Palin ringer that I was second guessing myself. Very strong cases can be made in either direction.

@litbrit: well put. I can almost feel SP's euphoria - her conviction - that God gave her daughter a DS baby in order to put her into the WH.

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jk

10/05/2011 08:10

One more thing we shouldn't forget in all of this: Ruffles makes an appearance in Bailey's book, two photos dated May and June 2008 (thank you, Frank!). If he/she was the rent-a-baby, it was not a matter of casually borrowing a baby for a couple of events. If it had been a casual borrow-a-baby thing, I would be less worried about what has become of this child.

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Tôt ou Tard

10/05/2011 08:25

In the Chris Cillizza interview whose link I posted above, SP is wearing the same jacket, scarf, and earings that she's wearing in the Feb. 25, DC Governors Conference photo. Daisydem posted a link to that photo, above.

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Conscious at last!

10/05/2011 08:39

@ Anonfornow re: Tue 10/4 21:34:29

The interview you are referring to was, I think, with Chris Cillizza. SP does not say anything about a baby, she simply says something like"...no, the VP slot is impossible this time around..." or something like that. I believe that the interview was in Feb. 2008.

At this very moment, there is a big tree being taken down across the street from my home. The roots have been invading my neighbor's sewer line and the branches are all tangled in electric wires. At first I felt badly about this. I love trees. But this one has been poorly placed and is doing a lot of damage. If left as it is, it will surely do more damage. Sometimes, the compassionate thing to do IS to fell the tree.

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sunnyskies

10/05/2011 08:56

"Clue" has always been my favorite board game, so in that time-honored tradition, I "accuse"

1. Trig is Bristle's baby and the father is unknown.
2. Trig was born prematurely with serious complications, which were not anticipated.
3. Trig was born in January or Feb of 2008. Bristol conceived during the late summer of 2007, and was "confined" during the winter of 2008 at her aunt's house and/or homeschooled in Wasilla.
4. Sarah makes lemonade out of a lemon - Trig is a "godsend" to her career and her solution resolves how to pay for Trig's medical bills.
5. When Chuck and Sally show a baby too big to be a fragile preemie (people noticed), Ruffles was borrowed, until Trig could safely be shown.
6. Bristol WAS angry with her mom for fabricating the hoax, and decides to get pregnant again,
7. but Sarah uses the second pregnancy to help "cover" the rumors that Trig is Bristol's baby by manipulating the dates of Tripp's birth - making him younger than he really is.

This scenario has been repeated many times, and it does fit the facts....
Facts are photos, emails, news clippings, etc. that cover the time in question: summer of 2007 through Dec. of 2008.

Trying to fit anything the Palins, Heaths, or Johnstons say into the timeline will only lead to dead ends, which they are intended to do.

I only recently became interested in the issue of Trig's mysterious birth, so I was surprised to find older blogs -particularly Palin's Deceptions - where this scenario had already been painstakingly presented.

What really shocks me, and is my real concern with all things Palin, is how her "people" turned on the bloggers and apparently things got pretty ugly for some of them. You know you are close to the truth when people go to such extremes to discredit the investigation.

I think Brad Scharlott's second topic, the spiral of silence, is getting pushed into the background, and it is that that should be getting as much light as possible.

Who makes up the Palin's Army of Monkeys, the bots who game DWTS, take-down anyone who questions the Queen, and throw enough chaffe into the discussion to make heads spin. Who are they?

More important, who is it in the MSM who is quashing the inquiries? Is Murdoch, the usual suspect, able to make MSMBC pull their punches re: Palin, which I believe happened last night on Rachael Maddow?

Sarah Palin and her brood will disappear like a bad dream, but that our media has been so corrupted that the truth is trampled into dust, is a legacy that will outlast her, unless this spiral of silence is called out.

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Viola-Alex

10/05/2011 08:57

Two things emerged in the comments that have pushed me into believing absolutely in Brad's theory.

The first thing is the revelation (above) about the Washington state politician who had a DS baby and was applauded on the floor of the state capitol! (Thank you, AvidReader.) I'd never heard about this, and to me, it is a clincher. Sarah is almost pathologically impressionable. She copied Ivana Trump. She made her hair look like Oprah's. She studied what a darling of the right Gina Louden is.

And Sarah formed a plan based on a Desperate Wives tv episode!

As someone else said, Sarah made lemonade out of Bristol's lemon. It makes perfect sense Sarah would solve a problem by plagierizing the life story of another woman politician.

(By the way, WA Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the mother of a DS baby, is the real Republican deal. She is the highest ranking Republican woman in Congress! Read her Wiki bio and you will feel Sarah's envy creep over you. Thank you again, AvidReader. Is Rodgers by any chance from Sally's family's district?)

The second thing that makes me believe Brad's theory is what litbrit wrote about God's door opening for Sarah. Sarah's an imitator, and she's also meme hound. The loops she gets stuck in, I believe, arise from some small truth somewhere, and then become part of her self-mythologizing. That Bristol's baby, who was such a problem, might be seen as a DOOR?! Well, yes, that would make me hate my mom, too.

Bristol is sort of a red herring, as stated above. Because it almost doesn't matter if Ruffles were Bristol's or Trig was, because the salient fact is that Sarah capitalized on her daughter's misfortune to further her own career. The anger that Bristol felt in Spring 2008 may be one of the few true facts of her book and Levi's.

Thanks, Brad, for starting this Babygate Colloquium. Thanks all for being articulate enough to shed more light by voicing your arguments clearly and respectfully.

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Palinoia

10/05/2011 09:16

@ Phyllis,

Thanks for posting the email "confirmation" that Bristol (or a stand in, her cousin maybe?) was at the Go Red luncheon on 2/15. I know that Patrick and many others scoured the web looking for ANY photos of that event, and oddly (or not so oddly) there were none, and are still none to be found. Very strange for Palin not have a photo op when there was an opportunity.

I think the importance of that event was just the timing, and some people's insistence that Bristol was NOT in hiding, nor pregnant, nor postpartum. Well, given the date, if there was a photo of her, I think it would tell us a lot.

Well, well, well....I just hunted for the event again, and I guess while we were all out hunting for "Go Red" photos, the treasure trove of photos of this event was "Fairbanks Heart Walk".

Take a look - note all photos can be viewed in their original HUGE resolution.

There is ONE that I found of Bristol! And, hard to tell, but I'm thinking she could easily be postpartum in this photo. See # 163. There are also lots of photos of Sarah with scarf, in posed shots and also at the podium. Again, not looking any too pregnant IMHO.

http://tinyurl.com/3elj3hq

See the podium photos on page 13, photos 119 to 125.

http://tinyurl.com/43nkjnb

Photo 108 has an OBVIOUSLY pregnant women in it, for contrast purposes to the WGE.

Have at it everyone - can we find another photo of Bristol (standing up?) in this batch of 700 photos?

If you click on the photos, and then "all sizes" and then original size, you can get the giant version of each photo.

Now we can put to rest with photo proof that Bristol WAS at the event.

Wow!

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Palin Palooza

10/05/2011 09:19

I personally don't believe Levi was QUITE clued into having Tripp. We're ignoring his alleged anger around early May (Thx Sadie for your social networking)

I think he was too naive and, well, a boy to think about things deeply. I mean, he hardly even has any schooling.

We've never seen Bristol look unhappy around babies. We've seen her sitting in her mother's office with Trig and ecstatic around friends babies.

Im thinking she saw Levi as an attractive (! remember, he has nasty curly hair and looked rough then!) and dumb enough to not ask questions.

Yes, that makes sense and teen girls think that way.

When I was in High school, there was ONE guy who was officially out of the closet. He was popular, extremely attractive and super nice. All the girls chased him. One girl's MAIN GOAL IN LIFE was to turn him straight.

I fully believe Bristol was trying her hardest to turn Levi into her perfect little sperm donor/house husband once jealousy set in about her mom's newest baby. And yes, I am a doubter that Trig is Bristol's.

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Ottoline

10/05/2011 09:25

YES! I like your scenario, too, Brad. A lot.

Some odds and ends:

I thought Bailey said the photo in SP's office of her with baby on shoulder was May 5 2008. Then later he said "May." May 5 would fit re the borrowed Ruffles weekend.

Still puzzling: Use of the name Tripp (twice?) would suggest that Todd's relationship to Shailey Tripp was not known to the children? How could it possibly be otherwise.

Remember Bristol's "MY choice," on the Greta interview when asked about the Tripp (2nd) pregnancy). Just loud/emphatic enough to be a little jarring to my ear. That would fit with NO choice for Bristol over SP's baby grab.

Re SP's "not a VP candidate this time" quote, I recall several pre-VP-pick videos of SP very modestly saying it won't be her. I think that was the script.

LitBrit: what did Paxton have on McCain? The Iseming lobbying/affair thing? Or?

The baby-nurse waiting at home (per Levi) could well be Dar, because NICU experience would be more relevant than special-needs experience at the outset. Just fits that this little detail would be altered in Levi's script for his book.

The idea that Dar and Sherry Johnston might (separately) have been about to expose the hoax, and were fatally/seriously hurt to prevent that -- it sure fits. (C Menard's death might also fit into this category?)

My understanding is that noninvasive testing (other than an amnio) could be used to diagnose Ds before birth. So the "fact" of an amnio is prob another SP lie.

The May 5 2009 Tripp in the Matt Lauer interview with Bristol and Tripp still looks way too big to me.

There IS one other photo of the tiny baby (ears not showing) with another man, and that's the one with Levi and his father, where the father is holding the baby.

V-A: Your qu re why not have SP be the grandmother? Because at that point an unwed teen pregnancy seemed a disaster, esp if there are any other odd details concerning conception (as I suspect there are). So the initial thought about the hoax was just to conceal that, via adopting out, and then SP being the adoptive Mom, and then the Ds discovery (or that discovery could have preceded the SP hoax idea -- doesn't matter). And then SP learned of the second pregnancy when background discussions of SP being the VP pick were underway (in Feb with McCain for 15 min, but surely at other times in the next months with various staff getting the ducks in order), and by then the sr staff had heard the hoax rumors, and SP could say but this Bristol pregnancy is a problem but it refutes the hoax rumor. And being dumb, repressed men, theu bought it, even if few of us here did.

Oh well, this is way too long -- but I like the way the pieces fit. Prob not exactly, given how many possible permutations, but well enough in broad strokes. Much better than anything before, and given what we think we know.

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mary

10/05/2011 09:32

Palinoia: Wow, the Go Red event! Good work.

Honestly, I think Palin was wearing a scarf only because she had to wear something red. She does look big for her (mainly in her face - carrying the baby there, perhaps ;), but not pregnant big. The picture at the table with Bristol, Willow and Piper is PURE Palin. Why did she bring her daughters? They're inappropriately dressed (hoodies? really?), and obviously bored to death. I mean, the only way they could've shown less respect for the event would be to climb up on the table and take a dump. I kid.

I looked through and didn't see any of Bristol standing.

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Viola-Alex

10/05/2011 09:33

Palinoia! Holy cow! The Fairbanks luncheon after all these years! So, YES, there are new things to be discovered! Hooray!

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Rationalist

10/05/2011 09:38

Wow, AvidReader, that makes so much sense. I can see the harmonic convergence now - the WA state politician, the storyline on Desperate Housewives...it all added up to a great idea for Palin. Now, as to the coincidence of Bristol giving birth to a baby with Down Syndrome - either it's too far fetched or God truly did smile on Sarah and give her exactly what she needed. Both are just as crazy but not impossible.

Okay, I want to give a show of support for @Rubbernecking. I do NOT get the impression that he/she is here to obfuscate. I see skepticism and sometimes grumpiness, but a genuine and dogged commitment to finding the truth, even if it means playing devil's advocate.

For what it's worth.

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Melly

10/05/2011 09:55

Amazing find, Palinoia. Thanks.

Yeah, she's chunky in the photos, but she has no baby bump at all. She's even leaning into the edge of the podium. What a bunch of slobs those daughters are. Get your elbows off the table, sit up straight, and act like you have an ounce of interest in what's going on. Willow and B are probably pissed they had to put their phones away for a few minutes.

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Rick

10/05/2011 09:57

Someone stated above that the odds of a teen giving birth to a DS baby are the same as a 35 year old woman. At kids health dot org I found this quote. "Down syndrome is a relatively common birth defect, affecting between 1 in 800 and 1 in 1,000 births. The chances of having a baby with Down syndrome increase dramatically with the age of the mother; a woman who's 35 has a 1 in 350 chance of having a baby with Down syndrome, and a woman who's 45 has a 1 in 30 chance." So a DS baby is more likely to come from an older woman than a teen.

As for alcohol related birth defects here is some interesting reading.

One of the major factors in how badly alcohol seems to affect birth defects is binge drinking. And that fits with a party girl teen drinker. Throw in the probability of drug abuse also, and I'll stick with the alcohol/drug induced birth defect bearing baby over a DS baby. Making it imperative that Sarah cover it up to keep any hopes of elected office OR of grifting as much money as she could from the true believers.

Where would Sarah be now if it was found that her daughter gave birth to a child riddled with birth defects caused by drinking and drugging? I doubt she'd be a millionaire celebrity with multiple TV shows and paid speaking engagements to her credit, let alone a person with hopes of being elected to a higher office.

What would cause a person to fake a pregnancy? Anybody could have a teenager who got pregnant. People will overlook something like that and Bristol being announced as PG right after Sarah was selected is proof of that. And if the baby was DS, that just brings more sympathy with it. No reason for Sarah to pull off a pregnancy hoax. But having a baby affected with drug and alcohol abuse would not be accepted by anyone. I still believe that was the impetus for the Palins taking the drastic measure of faking a pregnancy.

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lilly lily

10/05/2011 10:01

Bristol is as conniving to get what she wants as mama.

Levi is not into birthing babies, he was into watching movies and making out with Bristol when he wasn't hunting or in the beginning playing hockey. He is also not observant except for hunting. No education at all. Might have been decent husband material for Bristol as neither is bright. Handsome, inarticulate and malleable. And DNA testing? What's that? He was ready to swallow any story they pushed.

Mrs Johnston is legally on her pain meds, and dosed up to the gills on meds. I don't see her as observant, more oblivious. Smiley, attractive but as a discarded 1st wife, probably bruised emotionally, and out of it to a degree, so she isn't going to rock the boat about anything, ever. Otherwise life is too hard. No one pays attention to Mrs. Johnston.

Mercedes has her own agenda going. And why not, she is on her own, paddling her kayak as best she can while bucking the Palins. She pushed to be included in things but they don't want her. Neither Bristol or Sarah like her in the least. And Levi was told to keep his mouth shut around Sadie.

And then there is our Queen of Sheba, Sarah Palin, used to getting exactly what she wants she wants immediatly, and "snap to it", for the last 25 years it has worked for her. An opportunist of the worst sort, in it for ME. The extended and enabling family gets the crumbs off of her table.

The family, used to supporting her, and falling into line ALWAYS, or else.

Todd, a bully, who does what he wants in Dillingham, and probably did on the slope. Now Dillingham is Tracks, and he is stuck with Sarah almost full time. Must be frustrating.

Happy? I doubt it.

The Palins Sarah, Todd and Bristol, have plenty of attention, most of it negative, but a generous amount of fawning adulation, so they concentrate on their worshipping hoards.

So the hoax was easy enough to pull off with that cast of characters.

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Ghostbuster

10/05/2011 10:11

After all this time, indeed. They were posted Jan 2011, a period that we know Joe was trying to corroborate facts and allegations for his book, too.

What surprised me most is not even that Bristol actually was there but that the kids are dressed so inappropriately - couldn't they have stopped by Walmart on the way to the airport and picked up some *red* hoodies?

Not even Piper is wearing red.

I remember that the event organizers were not happy with Palin showing up with the three girls in tow, but wow, it's not like she even made an effort to make it look like she viewed this as anything other than a free lunch (and state-subsidized plane tickets) for them.

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Brad Scharlott

10/05/2011 10:19

Rick: "Someone stated above that the odds of a teen giving birth to a DS baby are the same as a 35 year old woman."

Rick, I said odds of 15-year-old same as 35-year-old. That comes from the medical literature, which I investigated. Bristol was older than 15, but my point was the 1 in 1000 probably apples to older teens. It's still a long-shot, but maybe 1 in 500 or what for a 16 or 17 year old. I'm just interpolating. I don't really know.

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Ottoline

10/05/2011 10:23

Rick said: "So a DS baby is more likely to come from an older woman than a teen."

Rick this is not the case. The odds of conceiving a DS child are greater the older a woman gets, but there are way fewer of these older women who actually conceive, and the statistic I keep seeing is that 90% of such older women abort a DS fetus. The great majority of DS births come from young Moms: their odds for conceiving DS are smaller, but there are so many more such younger Moms.

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palinoia

10/05/2011 10:30

Thinking time frames now....in light of the photos of the Go Red luncheon from 2/15/08.

This was also the weekend of the Iron Dog, and many of us believed that Sarah "invited" her kids to this event specifically to expense their travel to the Iron Dog. I imagine that much is very likely.

If Bristol is Trig's mom, I think it is very apparent now in light of the luncheon photo that she was not pregnant at any time after 2/14 up to 4/18, and likely not after 2/11/08 (date of accident in Wasilla, where she was not noticed to be pregnant per witness report).

So, we are still out there with even stronger evidence that if she is the bio-mom, Trig arrived January/early Feb. time frame. Based on the prior September 2007 Christmas family photo on the staircase, and the October 2007 still shot of Bristol, I think we can safely say that if she did deliver in January / February, it was a premature birth based on her appearance in Sept/Oct. Maybe somewhere between 3-8 weeks premature, depending on "how pregnant" we think she was based on Sept/Oct photo's. I kinda think it would have been the 12-13 week range based on the September photo, which is a bit clearer than the October still.

Can someone help me remember...I believe that even though the daughters were "invited" to this luncheon by Sarah, Bristol was still a last minute entry compared to Willow and Piper. I think it had something to do with her airfare being booked after theirs, and at the last minute. I can't remember if this was gleaned from Sarah's Travel reports, schedule, and/or emails or all of the above. Am I remembering this correctly? Then Piper's airfare was canceled and she "drove with a friend" which was a really long drive given the time of year.

I'd also like to point out that time frame may have been birth sometime close to 2/11 - maybe just before, which would have been mere days prior to the luncheon. I'd guess if she was within a week to 10 days postpartum prior to the 2/15 date, it makes sense that she wouldn't commit to going until the last possible minute. Leaking milk, and still having postpartum vaginal discharge may have been contributing factors.

Very interesting stuff. I still haven't seen one shred of definitive proof that Bristol ISNT'T Trig's bio-mom, other than Sarah's outing her for being pregnant with Tripp and of course there is time frame issues with that as well, and it's own set of oddities. And of course, we all know what Sarah's word is worth.

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AvidReader

10/05/2011 10:40

Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) serves the congressional 5th district, which is a large portion of eastern WA: Spokane, primarily. Her district borders Idaho, Canada, and Oregon.

Her husband is the son of a former mayor of Spokane. But McMorris has a long history in WA state politics, serving on the legislature for 11 years, beginning when she was 24(!).

You see McMorris often; she is the tall dark-haired woman usually standing next to John Boehner whenever Republicans announce their latest 'Suck On It, America' program to the media.

She serves on the Energy Committee, as well as three Energy subcommittees. I have no idea why she would serve on any energy committees; eastern WA has little industry in that area.

The wiki article is good. Google 'McMorris and scandal' if you want the fuller political picture.

Like Sarah, McMorris told no one about her pregnancy with Cole, her DS son. news hit the papers here in WA the day after the birth. she has had another child since then, announcing her pregnancy in August 2010, birth in Dec.

The YouTube video of McMorris on the Congressional floor receiving accolades is a must-see. April or May 2007.

Since Nov. 2010, she has been the highest-ranking female member of the House of Representatives. Her ability to fundraise is legendary in eastern WA. She has no other talents that I am aware of.

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Palinoia

10/05/2011 10:41

@ Ghostbuster -

Their dress is certainly not worthy of the luncheon, and it really does make it look like a "free lunch" and "free travel" and nothing more as you point out. I do find it quite interesting that Bristol appears to have even MORE clothes on than Willow.

My conclusion: she wasn't pregnant, but she could very well be recently postpartum, hence layers of clothes, and no other photos of her, and no posed photos with Sarah that I could find.

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elizabeth

10/05/2011 10:46

I want to say that when I was writing my post above that this was the first time that I personally have really doubted that Bristol is Trig's mother.

And it was Brad and Laura who changed my mind. They had a comment a few days ago that said something to the effect how convenient it was that Palin needed a DS baby and Bristol just happened to provide one.

And that got me really thinking. Yes that was awfully convenient - TOO CONVENIENT if you ask me. And I also started to asking myself what was it really that attracted Palin to the Republicans to be McCain's VP selection. This whole idea that she was chosen to appease the PUMA's is complete BS IMHO. She was chosen specifically to corral the RW Fundies back in because they really, really didn't like McCain.

And based on everything I'm reading, especially in "The Rougue", Palin had her designs on the lower 48 long before the spring of 2008.

And yes, I agree, acquiring a DS baby doesn't happen overnight. It takes some planning and most of all some serious connections. Connections with organizations that specialize in teenage mothers. We have fundies and we have CBJ who both have strong connections there and back to Palin.

And the other thing that I can't ever get past is how vehemently the Johnsons have denied that Trig is Bristol's baby. We may say they are all paid off or living in fear or whatever but they really do not deviate from that statement that Trig is not Bristols. And we also have Gryphen stating on several occasions that he does not think Trig is Bristol's.

I'm not saying that I don't think Bristol had a baby or at least was pregnant before Tripp. I think she may have had a baby that was fragile and may or may not have survived. But I do not think the robust (shape-shifting) Trig we saw at the RNC or on the bus tour is Bristol's baby. I think he is exactly what he was supposed to be - a political prop that Palin acquired to CEMENT her pro-life creds and to spring her to the top of the VP short-list.

And I think trying to tie Bristol to Trig only really muddies the water and takes away from the real issue here. And that issue is that Sarah Palin FAKED a pregnancy (to the point of stuffing PILLOWS up her dress) in order to PROVE her pro-life creds and make herself desirable to the powers that be.

There are no coincidences with this scary lady. And there are also no limits to the extremes she will go to to fulfill what she really believes is her "god-given" manifest destiny. We all saw her throw her young teenage daughter to the wolves at the RNC so I don't think for one minute she ever did anything altruistic for anyone EVER - not even her own daughter - in fact we all witnessed her do the exact opposite!

And you have to remember that these Domininists have a very specific goal. That goal is to get control of our government so that they can make the USA a theocracy. They saw a strong opportunity with Sarah Palin and I don't doubt for one minute that there aren't those who would do what ever it took to make her the most desirable choice for McCain. Acquiring a convenient DS prop-baby for her seems like a very little price to pay to have a channel to the White House.

So my guess is:

Bristol probably was pregnant in late 07 and maybe had a baby or a baby died. She is a very insecure, troubled, neglected young lady who has been ABUSED by her sick mother and perhaps getting pregnant is her only way to assert herself as a human being in that insane world Sarah Palin has created for her family.

Trig is not Bristol's - he is a political prop provided to Sarah Palin by those (RW Dominionists) who want to get someone like her close the White House. Trig gave her the creds she needed to appeal to the RW Fundies base and something McCain needed desperately

I know this is the conventional wisdom here and it just makes more questions that can't be answered. But that is what make sense to me and fits more into who and what Sarah Palin really is.

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e

10/05/2011 10:48

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lilly lily

10/05/2011 10:50

According to Malia Littman, a mystery candidate for the GOP run is out there. A lawyer named Mark Braden who is the Sarah PAC lawyer is asking to a list of filing deadlines.

I only hope The Hoax can break right in her face. Now would get maximum exposure, in the knick of time, before she gets into the race.

I also hope Oz mudflats can find out what actually happened in that Iowa half race. Runners world had an article about her wonderful time in Iowa, and suggests that she run the Boston Marathon this fall.

Ya betcha.

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elizabeth

10/05/2011 10:53

Ack typos - I know we aren't supposed to care but I did mean to say...

I know this ISN'T the conventional wisdom here and it just makes more questions that can't be answered. But that is what make sense to me and fits more into who and what Sarah Palin really is.

IOW, I understand that thinking Trig is Bristol's baby is the popular theory. I am just more and more not believing it is.

You don't get to be a VP candidate for President just because you got 'lucky' and you teenage daughter gave birth to a 'DS' baby at the exact minute when that was exactly what you needed.

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GhostbusterTX

10/05/2011 10:55

By the way, Palinoia, kudos on your find! Even though it shoots down one of my predictions that Bristol probably wasn't at that dinner. Sarah looks well-padded in that maternity suit she's wearing, but not in the right places. Maybe a bulky sweater? I hope someone is downloading the high-res images now.

And Brad, I think you were out of line accusing rubbernecking of throwing up "roadblocks". Those are legitimate questions, and asking the tough questions is how you root out incorrect assumptions and leaps of faith. You know, those things we are asking the mainstream media to do.

Once someone is invested emotionally in a particular theory or scenario, they will always look for the evidence that reinforces their beliefs and prejudices; that's human nature.

It is a tendency that must be resisted, though, if you want to get to the truth.

If the question has a good answer, then the theory is stronger. If it doesn't, perhaps the best course is to rethink the theory, not question the motives of the questioner.

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lilly lily

10/05/2011 10:55

The Fairbanks Heart Walk.

Was that a walk featuring the need for adoption for Alaskan children? (Native?) I saw that they were featuring children from 3 on up for adoption when I googled up the Fairbanks Heart Walk in 2008.

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Viola-Alex

10/05/2011 11:14

Supporting you, Elizabeth, because you make a good case, too.

Imagine Bristol has a baby in Jan 08. This is where the meme of premature starts. During the baby's NICU struggle, DS is mentioned as a possible diagnosis. There is discussion of Sarah adopting this fragile child. A light bulb goes off for Sarah. She remembers Rep Cathy Rodgers. Bristol gives up this newborn (or worse) and Sarah has a plan. (the door opens) SHE will give birth now, and copy Rodgers. (Another DAMN coincidence, imo)

Bristol is bereft at losing a baby-- and one-upped by her mother. That would produce some pretty bigass rage.

Bristol and Levi exhibit tenderness to the Procured Trig because of who he represents.

As for where Procured Trig comes from, your guesses, Elizabeth, are as good as mine. From the high teen pregnancy rate in AK and all those women in social services that Palin fired, there are lots of possibilities. (Russian orphans, too! I can see Russia from my house. Well, may be she can.)

My apologies for being an absentee landlord. I am having major computer and modem problems, which includes my phone. I'll begin going through comments now and see if I can add anything to your fantastic discussion.

Many thanks, L.

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Palinoia

10/05/2011 11:18

@ Elizabeth,

I completely get what you are saying re: Dominionist involvement in the procurement/hoax of Trig and Sarah's pregnancy.

The hardest part about this entire thing for me is that the Palins (and Domionists) are operating from a place that I can't quite get to in my own head. I'm just not wired to think that way.

It's kinds of like when we read about a criminal scam, and go "wow, I would never have come up with that". Defrauding and lying to people is just not where I am personally, so it is a real challenge for me to think in those terms. I guess I go with the beginnings of Babygate starting out innocently enough via an unexpected teen pregnancy and then devolving into a hoax for several advantages on an as-you-go-basis. I think in those terms rather than the hoax being cooked up even before there was a pregnancy and baby (no matter whom gave birth) as part of a bigger overall "get Sarah into office no matter what it takes" campaign.

I do know that the WHOLE thing just makes my head hurt!

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anon

10/05/2011 11:34

Avidreader @10:40, are you under the impression that this is a fan page for Cathy McMorris Rodgers? You're in the wrong place, honey.

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AvidReader

10/05/2011 11:42

http://palinemail.msnbc.msn.com/palinAll/pdf/12495.pdf

During the critical Trig time, Feb-April 2008, there was the sad news that the nephew of a state official had died, leaving behind his pregnant wife and four children (link above). The email is tagged High importance and it's sent to Sarah and Todd only.

My personal theory is that Sarah was very aware of Cathy McMorris' cred-elevation because of her DS son, and had been looking for a similar 'opportunity' since May 2007.

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anon too

10/05/2011 11:47

Why would you think that Avidreader thinks this is a fan page for Rodgers? Haven't you read the previous comments?

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Sunshine1970

10/05/2011 11:47

@Palinola

WOW! Great catch with those photos.

Sarah actually looks quite large there. Very padded up. And then, we go to the February photos of her in that walking/workout outfit where she's quite thin, again. Weird, weird, weird.

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Banyan

10/05/2011 11:56

@jk

The baby "Ruffles" seen in the pictures at the birthday party could well have been born extremely prematurely in Feb. or earlier -- in which case the baby probably weighed under 1000 grams (2.2 lbs. or less) at birth, and remained extremely scrawny and frail months later as preemies usually do.

The RNC Tri-G COULD NOT have been born extremely prematurely -- he's just too big and robust.

My guess as to how it all happened comes down to 2 different scenarios.

1) First scenario: The baby hoax was planned well in advance, say, 2006, by Palin and her handlers; it would be put into play only if Palin were needed to hold the base in the event a moderate were to head the next GOP ticket. (Michele Bachmann was similarly being groomed for the role.)

Bristol happened to be pregnant in the winter of 2007-8 -- as seems to be her default condition -- and delivered extremely prematurely.

I doubt that this baby had DS (too coincidental for me, in this scenario).

Ruffles is that premature baby .

People in Alaska "knew" Bristol was pregnant because Sarah herself started, or at least stoked, the rumors, according to Frank Bailey.
She did this because Bristol's pregnancy gave her cover for her own hoax -- which was to acquire a DS child (via the Fundie baby underground, or perhaps from Russia -- which Sarah can see from her house).

If Sarah's faked pregnancy was ever revealed, she could always switch to Plan B (Bristol) and say she was nobly covering up for daughter.

But then Bristol got pregnant again. Only at the convention did Sarah see a way to make this work for her by fudging Tripp's due date.
____

2 )My 2nd theory involves the use of IVF and surrogacy (the Snowflake baby theory) to create deliberately enough DS babies at just the right time (and genetically in the family) for Sarah to use for her R-T-L campaign prop.

It should be even easier for MDs to select for DS embryos than to select against them, if using Sarah's own aged eggs, which would still be there if her ovaries were not removed after the "tubal."

It would probably take several surrogate mothers to produce a healthy DS survivor who was sturdy enough to go on the campaign trail.

I'm sure there are plenty of Quiverfull women who would have LOVED to carry Queen Esther's baby and participate in this awesome Mission from God.

In this scenario, Bristol may have been one of the surrogates -- she was going to be "mother duck to that baby." In which case, the baby she bore was too premature and too fragile to be the RNC Trig, but was, instead, Ruffles (who did have DS by deliberate design).

The "Snowflake Baby"idea going around since 2006 in R-T-L circles was that their women should become pregnant using the spare embryos in fertility clinics to save them from being discarded or used for stem cell research.

Pro-choice people mischievously mocked this concept by suggesting that all female GOP officeholders who had voted against stem cell research should do likewise and gestate one, or more, of the spare Snowflake embryos that would otherwise be discarded.

Below is one satirical piece suggesting that Sen. Elizabeth Dole (in her 70s) was going to be one such Republican Snowflake Mother.

Note the date on that story --2006. This is when, I think, the serious planning for Sarah's hoax began and when she first questioned Frank Bailey about how a pregnant governor would be viewed by the public.

This, from a women who'd already had her tubes tied (if our informants are correct) suggests a major hoax was already being gestated.

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kappachino

10/05/2011 11:58

Regarding photo #163 from the Go Red Luncheon...I was just wondering if that was the same doll, the one Piper is holding, that SP used in the June 2008 church speech. And poor Piper, just look at her face. Here's the link to the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQIa3KGmlm0

Check out the dangling baby arm at the start 0.05 and then she pinches the baby's head at about the 1:49 mark. I cannot imagine for the life of me any mother pinching a baby like that. It can't be real.

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lilly lily

10/05/2011 12:00

No way would Bristol have lived with the Johnstons. She out and out hated Sadie, and even forbade Levi to talk to her. She insulted his mother. She only went to their home to sleep with Levi now and then. But Bristol made her contempt for his family clear.

Their only hope as a couple was for Levi to work on the slope, and then they could have forged an independant life away from mama.

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jul

10/05/2011 12:06

It just occurred to me that Sarah,(or someone on the McCain team), may very well have performed the most brilliant political maneuver of all time.
Sarah contends that Trig is her baby because he isn't Bristol's.
We have spent three years trying to find a scenario that proves Bristol is Trig's mother.
But if Sarah was telling the truth, and Bristol isn't Trig's mother we will never be able to prove she is.
We will have spent countless hours, months, years, proving the unprovable.
We need to prove Sarah isn't and not that Bristol is.

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elizabeth

10/05/2011 12:07

Palinoia,

I hear you. I think all of us (and most people) have a hard time wrapping their brain around Sarah Palin's pathology.

My first clue that this woman isn't like you or me is what she did to her daughter at the RNC. I too have a 17 year old daughter. I would never, ever, ever put her up for display to the world if she was in the vulnerable, compromised position that Bristol Palin appeared to be in Aug 2008. I wouldn't even talk about her. And if I was doing all this just because I was trying to 'prove' something about myself, ie: I really gave birth to a baby because my 'pregnant' 17 year old couldn't have - well that is crazy stuff. Palin USED her daughter so that she didn't have to legitimately prove her pregnancy with Trig. This woman is screwed and glued so completely different than most loving, caring Moms that she is scarily pathological!

And this was back in 2008 that I made that observation. This was before I knew anything about what a vindictive, coldly calculating, deceitful, ambitious piece of work that Sarah Palin was and is. Heck, I don't even think she is religious at all. I think she will just sell herself to the highest bidder for fame and glory.

So I get what you are saying but I also get that this hoax was perpetrated for a specific reason and that reason was NOT to cover for her daughter - her daughter was just more collateral damage. This pregnancy was designed to cement Palin's creds as a viable VP candidate. She was on a short list, maybe, but she really didn't have a lot to recommend her except that DS baby. And that DS baby gave her VISUAL creds that were so strong she didn't have to open her mouth to be the 'savior' of the RW base of the party. (in fact it turned out better that she never opened her mouth and the McCain campaign did do their darnedest to try and keep it shut.)

I think we all have come accept that there is something or someone behind Sarah Palin that keeps her front and center with some serious clout. Maybe it's several factions and she just sells herself to the highest bidder, but knowing what I know about this woman today, I don't doubt for one minute that she would throw a pillow under her skirt and 'declare' herself pregnant for a couple of months just so she could position herself as "Gift's gift" to the Republican party.

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elizabeth

10/05/2011 12:30

"Gift's gift" to the Republican party.

Uhg - meant to say "God's gift"

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SLQ

10/05/2011 12:30

lilly lilly, it looks like the annual "Go Red for Women" Heart Association event, so it shouldn't have anything to do with adopting children.

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Palintologist

10/05/2011 12:35

Maybe "God's Grift" to the Republican party

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NSG

10/05/2011 12:44

I found a good source for frequency of DS by maternal age, broken down by narrow age groups, for anyone who's interested.

After reading Levi's book, I'm all the more convinced Trig was born to Bristol and furthermore, I think Tripp was due in November. It makes sense in many ways and clears up most of our confusion.

After I wrote it all down it was so long, I thought it looked like it's own blog page. And it seemed rude to try to dominate a discussion with such a lengthy and detailed posting, so I posted it as a blog here:

I don't think Avid Reader was doing anything more than showing us an uncanny resemblance to Palin's story, or rather, a real life inspiration for the ambitious one.

Elizabeth, I hear you, and yet I also hold out the possibility that it was Bristol. Yes, what are the odds? And I don't mean of just the Ds, but of the opportunity it provided Sarah.

Thanks for the Ds figures, NSG. And thanks to Palinoia for the great photo find! 3 years and now some luncheon photos!!

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Lidia17

10/05/2011 13:19

Elizabeth and Viola-Alex, I'm leaning toward your way of thinking because—well—there's simple and there's simple. While nothing is truly simple in Palin-land, I also think that the Bristol-Trig story could be too convenient. While Bristol looked happy and flushed with Ruffles, I never saw her looking so joyful with RNC Trig (who I don't believe is the same child).

Another thing struck me, which is Sarah's talking about "real courage" being an attribute of someone who had lost a child. When Sarah says oddball things like this, my belief is that some germ of it usually comes from SOMEwhere.

"A courageous person is anyone who loses a child and can still get out of bed in the morning."
http://www.esquire.com/features/what-ive-learned/sarah-palin-interview-0309#ixzz1QzXwP6C0

I don't think Sarah says things without a self-serving reason, whether that reason is conscious to her or not. She doesn't have the empathic capacity (imo) to be talking about some generic fictitious person who may have lost a child. She can't project that way.

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Brad Scharlott

10/05/2011 13:20

Well, I stand corrected on the issue of young teens and DS incidence. From a recent study:

Down's syndrome (Trisomy 21) is the most common chromosome abnormality among live births (CDC, 2006). Previous studies have indicated that the incidence increased with advancing maternal age and rose exponentially after age 35 (Hsu, 1998). So far, there has been no evidence showing the association between younger maternal age and the risk of Down's syndrome (Hsu, 1998), which was consistent with our present study. The negative finding on the association between teenage pregnancy and Down's syndrome in this study lends validity to our data.

from:

Teenage pregnancy and congenital anomalies: which system is vulnerable?

Human Reproduction Volume22, Issue6Pp. 1730-1735.

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lilly lily

10/05/2011 13:24

I never tried to pinpoint the mother as Bristol, though it seemed probable that Sarah Palin would never trouble herself with anyones spawn but her own families.

I only know that she says of course she Sarah, is his mother. And if he is adopted of COURSE she is his legal mother. Has she ever shown any proof that Trig is her biological Child? Not really difinitively hers biologically.

She has never shown proofs.

Palin claimed she was pregnant and offered to allow a man to touch her stomach (not her bare stomach). She also claimed to have birthed Trig in two locations, Mat Su and Anchorage. She also allowed her daughters boyfriend to see her in Mat Su disheveled and worn out? with an IV supposedly after a delivery, and allowed him to hold Trig.

Nothing makes any sense. A mish mash of lies and evasions.

Palin also claimed to have shown his birth certificate, but never did.

Perhaps someone could make a list of what she claimed and what SHE hasn't and can't seem to prove.

Everyone was supposed to take her word as the truth, when all she ever does is lie, lie, lie, lie.

Can anyone get a transrcipt of the hacking trial statements of Bristol and Sarah? Surely someone has access to a database than can confirm Bristol told a jury that her mother's hacker released pictures of her "newborn," but the email was hacked in September 08 and Tripp wasn't born until the end of December 08.

I happen to know a woman who birthed a DS baby when she was in her early to mid 20s. It happens.

Meanwhile, very interesting 2007 article in the New York Times on screening for Down Syndrome.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/09/health/09preg.html

According to this article, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is now recommending that ALL pregnancies be screened for DS, regardless of maternal age, because "while older women are at greater individual risk of conceiving a child with Down syndrome, most babies with the disorder are born to young women, simply because they give birth in far greater numbers."

The article goes on to say that most OBs are under the misconception that younger women can't have a DS baby and so have not been encouraging screening.

Pregnant teens often don't get early or adequate pre-natal care, due to financial, emotional, and other factors. So I can easily imagine a pregnant teen not getting tested for DS, either because she didn't seek prenatal care early enough for the testing or because her doctor didn't think this particular test was necessary for such a young mother.

The number of DS babies and children has gone way down in my lifetime because of abortion, for better or worse. Most of us tend to only think about DS when an older expectant mother in our circle is worrying about the testing. However, women tend not to share their abortion stories with casual acquaintances, so it's quite possible that many of us know someone who conceived a DS baby at a younger maternal age and chose to terminate the pregnancy.

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Dangerous

10/05/2011 14:03

I wasn't going to post, although I had drafted something already, but with Andrew Sullivan linking here I thought I had better make sure that this line of thought was cut off, if possible.

There is simply no way that political benefits -- such as something as out of her control as who John McCain would select as his VP candidate -- could be the motive for Sarah Palin to fake a pregnancy simply to have a DS infant to tote around.

This theory seems to suffer an ex-post-facto fallacy. While she definitely used Trig as a political plus once she was selected as VP, that's no indication that that was her PLAN when she chose to fake the pregnancy. There are three incontrovertible circumstances that render Brad's theory, while creative, completely unworkable:

1) While there's reason to thinnk that John McCain and his staff found her a much more attractive candidate by having her family and the DS infant in tow, there's no way she could have known that that would matter to them AS A DECISIVE FACTOR when she had to decide to fake the pregnancy.

2) Even if she thought it would be back in March of 2008, she would have to decide that it was worth the risk of ending her entire public life for what would only be a marginal enhancement (if at all) to her appeal as a VP nominee. That's also assuming that that was what she was after -- which may or may not be the case -- since her public statements indicated she wasn't interested AND she wasn't widely touted as a possible VP candidate in the media. She was, after all, a complete surprise pick.

3) Even if she made a ridiculous calculation to fake a pregnancy for a DS infant in the vain thought that it would be a difference maker in geeting the VP position she desperately coveted, there is certainly no motive for Dr. CBJ and close family to go along with the ruse.

Nobody fakes a pregnancy to keep an infant for the political BENEFITS having the child would instill. It is such a risky scheme with the distinct possibility of total failure that the alternative to not faking has to be worse, FOR EVERYBODY INVOLVED.

Brad's "epiphany", while creative and thought-provoking, simply doesn't fit the math. Suppose she didn't get the VP nod? Then she's stuck with a DS baby for the rest of her life? Who would risk such a thing? Wouldn't she get just as much bump for adopting a DS infant without the risk of faking a pregnancy?

@Dangerous - you have some interesting points. And while all of us have focused on the fundies and Paxson as pushing Palin, we have to remember that they are not the only power-behind-the-scenes in the GOP. The others did not succeed wrt the VP nomination, so we don't focus on them - but SP's nomination back in Feb/March must not have been as given as it looks with 20-20 hindsight.

So I don't think it was an outside-of-the-family DS baby. I think they were hiding BP's pregnancy - certainly the safest way to play it - when Trig was born with all his problems. And then there were so many motives for SP to pretend to have him. Insurance, politics, and most-of-all, the attention a pregnant woman gets, without the actual trouble of being pregnant.

I have always felt that the two babies are identical twins. I think that is why Sarah felt confident about switching them out with each other when they got older.

Another reason is I personally have identical twin nieces that had twin-to-twin syndrome when they were in utero. This is a unequal distribution of nutrients to the fetuses by the umbilical cords. Instead of being 50-50%, it can range from 49-51% to 1-99%. The result is that one of the fetus's will be larger and the other one will be smaller. The one that gets less nutrients may also develop some birth defects that does not happen to the other one, even though they are identical twins.

This exact syndrome with twins and ear deformity is explained here, scroll down to the section that states, 'Specific Factors'.

When my nieces were born, there was a large discrepancy in size, but they looked alike in the face. Their condition was not severe.

This scenario seems far more plausible to me than believing that Sarah found another woman with a DS baby, born at around the same time Trig was born, to 'rent' or 'change out' with Trig, for political convenience. I wrote about it in more detail in my blog.

http://www.palinpeytonplace.com/2-babies-1-mother.html

That is why I believe there is only one mother, not two. And there is proof that the babies were changed out at the RNC.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35383132@N00/4715160688/in/photostream/

I believe at this time, Ruffles ear had been surgically repaired to a degree.

@NSG - thanks for the odds information. But your data are not complete. What is the likelihood of being pregnant in the first place, for each age group?

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livex

10/05/2011 14:55

Everyone here understands the difference between "a plausible scenario arrived at through speculation" and "evidence," right?

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Brad Scharlott

10/05/2011 14:59

Dangerous wrote:

"Brad's "epiphany", while creative and thought-provoking, simply doesn't fit the math. Suppose she didn't get the VP nod? Then she's stuck with a DS baby for the rest of her life? Who would risk such a thing? Wouldn't she get just as much bump for adopting a DS infant without the risk of faking a pregnancy?"

What makes you say she is stuck with Trig? Have you seen him with her lately?

Instead od ex post facto reasoning, you are using ex post normal-human-being logic. The logic in Sarah's world is different, I think – she's impulsive, and she has incredible faith in her ability to bluff, I believe.

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Bob

10/05/2011 15:03

This photo shows a woman with a slightly rounded tummy - where do you get "flat as a board"? The photo on the left .. the zoom on the right is too low-res to present any kind of depth perception information.

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lilly lily

10/05/2011 15:21

As of 6:12 Huffington is reporting she isn't running according to sources. Further reports to follow.

Good. She can go to hell and have her nervous breakdown in the privacy of her own little mental facility.

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leva

10/05/2011 15:26

photos 128 and 117 have distant views of Palin daughters.

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we won't have sarah palin to kick around any more

10/05/2011 15:32

She has announced she's not running in 2012.

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voiceinwind

10/05/2011 15:33

ALERT....just announced on msnbc, Palin will not be running....

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Jolene

10/05/2011 15:36

BREAKING: SARAH PALIN NOT RUNNING FOR PRES IN 2012!

Do we continue with Babygate or is it all done now?

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Viola-Alex

10/05/2011 15:37

It's official. From a letter to her supporters.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/10/105741/

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search4more

10/05/2011 15:37

I spied at least 2 video cameras set up on tripods at the Go Red event. So there is video somewhere and in some of it Bristol may have been standing up. It is infuriating really because I know there is all this stuff out there. For example if you look at Palin's calendar she has multiple press conferences and TV interviews in the time we are interested in. KTUU and the other TV channels still have those tapes and surely at each press availability a photographer or even someone from a TV station was on hand to record what happened. So the evidence is out there, it's just a question of how we get at it.

Good find Palinoia. Great photos. No definitive answer to anything though, but it's still great to find new stuff.

Laura, could you possibly do a few research posts sometime. What I mean by that is you set the commenters a research task. That's basically what happened on this post by accident. You could for example put up a copy of one of the pages from Palin's schedule and then we could all go off trying to find pictures and info about it. Waddaya think...good idea or not? :-)

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au contraire

10/05/2011 15:38

I'll keep kicking her until the truth is out.

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Up

10/05/2011 15:40

so what if she wasn't picked, and ended up being stuck with the baby. She didn't take care of the kids she had, how much work would it be to ignore one more?

Dr Scharlott are saddened that Palin didn't mention you by name in her announcement?

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rf

10/05/2011 15:41

Bristol could be the mother. I have a cousin in her twenties who delivered a DS baby.

Levi says in his book that SP had adoption papers drawn up, it's just not clear as to WHEN.

Brad's theory makes perfect sense.

PS: I haven't read other comments, sorry if this is repetitive.

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caitlyn

10/05/2011 15:49

Maybe the plan was to hide Bristol's condition and give the baby up for adoption, but when he was born with Down, the prospective adopters backed out and Sarah had to come up with a new plan.

Didn't Bristol get into a car accident (minor ) shortly after February 14? Maybe she was angry that her mom decided to keep Bristol's son and drove recklessly.

Maybe that is why she decided to have Tripp--to take back control of her life from her mother.

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Palinoia

10/05/2011 15:58

Well, now that Her Heinous has officially announced her marathon political tease is over and she is not running......

Babygate and all the other gates need not be discarded. They are and will be the text book example of how the MSM shapes our politics and who they let slide by and who they won't. My great fear is that if these issues are not fully investigated, that it will just embolden other politicians to think they can get away (cleanly) with increasingly egregious behavior behind closed doors while painting themselves in an entirely different light publicly. On top of that, there are those voters who will blindly lap up the public persona, to the detriment of this country, as we have seen with Palin.

There are many who need to be held accountable for the travesty that is Palin, simply so it does not ever happen again.

March on soldiers, there is still much work to do.

Oh - almost forgot - Thank you God!

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FrostyAK

10/05/2011 16:07

Many people seem to be looking at this whole hoax as it might make sense in a NORMAL mind. We must remember that the mind that spawned this hoax is anything BUT normal, as proven by all the OTHER absolute crap $P has pulled.

We must also not forget how desperate the Dominionists are to take complete charge of the country and turn it into a theocracy.

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Lidia17

10/05/2011 16:11

@Bob… Six and 3/4 months pregnant is what she claimed at the date of the Juneau "hike" video, from which that still is taken (my shortened version below):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIcb8MGYDn8

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lidia17

10/05/2011 16:17

We're not talking "slightly rounded"…

THIS IS WHAT A 6-7 month PREGNANT WOMAN LOOKS LIKE, FOR CHRIST's SAKE!!

The odds of having a baby with Down's Syndrome are 100% if you have one. I knew a young couple who had one, they were early 20's so still a bit older than Bristol. I think we all have some 'damaged' eggs, as we get older there are just more of them as a percentage?

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search4more

10/05/2011 16:28

I started trying to find the court transcript for the David Kernell trial.

Here is one possible place to start. I didn't get very far with it though. Others might.

http://publicrecords.onlinesearches.com/TN_Knox.htm

I did find a partial transcript of one witnesses testimony at scribd and another site though. The value of this is that at the top of the document there is the name of the case and of the lawyers. I think it has the case number too although I'm not certain that's what that particular number I'm looking at is.

here are the links:

http://scr.bi/dCRuDS

and

http://bit.ly/d3Ff5P

It should be possible to use these details to do a better search. I'm a bit tired now so I'm not sure I'm going to go any further with it. Maybe tomorrow.

His sentence was way too long. Not fair.

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FrostyAK

10/05/2011 16:33

Absolutely NOT going to give up on exposing the Wasilla Harpy for what she is. And more importantly exposing those who were behind her. Wonder how she feels having been thrown to the curb as she did to SO many others...

There is a ROT in this country, one that allowed her to get where she is, and more importantly where she almost was. My state stinks of her ROT, and those in the rest of the country need to be shown exactly what that ROT consists of and how it was foisted on all of us.

My guess is her decision is twofold. One, she wants to keep grifting from the paint chip eaters, 'charities', and Faux Noise. Two, something else was about to be exposed, and she has retreated instead of reloading. Hopefully it will be exposed anyway.

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jk

10/05/2011 16:34

Banyan, thanks for weighing in (so to speak)! I'm also inclined to think, at least most of the time, that Ruffles was born prematurely to Bristol, and Trig came from somewhere else. I agree that RNC-Trig was not a preemie. Apart from his size at the RNC, it's clear to me that blue-sweater-Trig is the same baby as RNC Trig (compare the former photo with the blue/black jumper photos from the RNC), and blue-sweater-Trig is a young infant with good muscle tone, no signs of prematurity.
Back to Ruffles: there are the photos in Bailey's book, which to my eye clearly show a DS infant, clearly with a ruffled ear. I do think the discussion about DS stats is a red herring -- statistics aren't going to solve this. Bristol could have had a DS baby; what I continue to trip over is the wild coincidence that Bristol would have happened to produce exactly the prop that her mother needed to bolster her RTL cred. And if by wild chance that's what happened, but Ruffles was too low-functioning, or not expected to survive, how did they order up a new & improved prop on such short notice? The point that Palin doesn't have the wherewithal to plan an elaborate hoax strikes me as another red herring: surely the powers behind the scene would have planned it, as always Palin along for the (wild) ride.
I admit I was disappointed by today's big news: seemed to me the one best chance we had of getting the real dirt, at long last, was for her to jump into the race. OTOH it would surely ameliorate my despair if Fox News does fire her sorry butt once & for all ;)

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comeonpeople

10/05/2011 16:37

OK, cool, i don't have to pack it up and move to Norway!
But we are not done here. Babygate and all it implies still needs to be revealed.
But, YEAH!! (also, too).

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lilly lily

10/05/2011 16:38

I for one am taking a long vacation from Babygates.

Keep up the good fight.

She is a Lady Dracula. Halloween is nearly here. She believes she drives the bus and won't shut up, as long as she can pay Ram and her writers. She has nothing to say on her own. She is inarticulate and stupid. Except for her talking points.

Her following is disheartened but some remain delusional.

The twitter site I followed is urging her to run. The woman urged Sarah to announce her run on her twitter site. LOL. These people were true believers of this woman.

New open thread up. I find such relief at this news. But let's keep talking!!

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lilly lily

10/05/2011 17:04

I did dream she was quitting on Tuesday morning, and posted it here on Tuesday just to record it, that she was quitting, but I thought it was for reasons of health, or that is what she said in the dream.

Hurrah! hurrah!!! I will sleep soundly tonite.

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Brad Scharlott

10/05/2011 17:14

Dr Scharlott are saddened that Palin didn't mention you by name in her announcement?

UP: No, it's enough to know she was thinking of me.

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Road Runner

10/05/2011 17:15

Palin's Deceptions, in a post dated July 7, 2009, "How to Lie with Statistics", addressed the issue of the odds of a 17 year old having a child with Downs Syndrome. In a nutshell, while the odds of a 43 year old woman having a Downs Syndrome baby are about 25 times greater than a teenager, the odds of a successful pregnancy are 29 times more likely for a 17 year old than a 43 year old woman, given the far higher rates of miscarriage and infertility in older women. For example, by age 45, 90% of all previously fertile couples are infertile, while half of all pregnancies for 43 year old women end in miscarriage. Although unusual, every year about 300 Downs Syndrome babies are born to women under 20.

Plus, given the numerous reports of the Palins' rocky marriage, the odds of 43 year old Sarah Palin having an unplanned successful pregnancy are even lower.

Ruffles is being fed with one of those Medela bottles (the kind that come with the breast pump)

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eva marie

10/05/2011 17:35

I looked at the picture of the "palin girls" and do not see proof that bristol is in that picture. both girls are covering their face with their hands and we have already established they have cousins who resemble them, is there a clear picture of bristol at this event?

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Cyn

10/05/2011 17:40

What started out as a very,very bad day, just got a little better. Pleased Sarah has put her tease to rest. Doesn't mean she will shut up though for that blessed event to happen, she has to be outed.
I am convinced there are people who know enough or even the whole story, that #1 have blogs of their own or #2 post on all the anti Sarah blogs.The truth isn't what motivates them it is money. The angle seems to be I know so much,but can't say because blah blah but wait maybe if you pay me or make a small donation.
Enough if know the truth quit being so damm coy

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Banyan

10/05/2011 18:09

No vacation for me!

It is important that the GOP/Dominionists handlers are exposed for what they tried to do to our country. They will eventually find another Sarah Palin if we let them get away with it this time.

There is so much I'd like to respond to in the comments above.

For example, it is clear to me (Political Junky with very long memory) that SP was "chosen" by the Dominionists for VP candidate very, very early.They keep a stable of attractive Fundie candidates throughout the US and other countries who are ready to move into power when the chance arises. Some of these people are being blackmailed; others are true believers. With the Palins, it could be both.

McCain was forced by Paxson (the Christian Broadcaster who developed the goods on McCain, years previously) to put Palin on the ticket during the Governor's conference in February 2008. It was kept secret, of course, and McCain wasn't happy about it at all.

I have worked all my life in a field that attracts attention from Fundie/Dominionists, and though it is hard to get one's head around their logic, once you've been in their crosshairs, you learn quickly how they operate. This pregnancy hoax has their dirty fingerprints all over it.

I also have a handicapped child and I know how Fundies use people with handicaps to advance their anti-choice agenda. It is disgusting and so Palinesque.

I'm delighted that Palin is not running. The urge to see her outed is subordinate, for me, than the urge to make sure that she will never be anywhere near power.

Sadly, she will continue to use her influence to bring out the base, and she still could be selected to balance a ticket -- say a VP to Romney. Think about it, and stay the course!

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don'tforget

10/05/2011 19:47

Don't forget the interview Levi gave, I believe it was on the Tyra Banks show, but it might have been a different one. This was after Tripp was born. He was asked how he and Bristol told her mom they were expecting a baby. He did one of his "Ums," and then he said, "That time...." and he gave one of the stories that he was telling about how they told Sarah.

How can there be a "THAT time...." without there also having been an EARLIER time?

Find that video and much will become clear. I don't think this was an interview he gave with his mom and sister, I think it was just him being interviewed alone if I remember correctly.

But he clearly said....."THAT time we....." (told Sarah....)

That time....so there was an EARLIER time when they had had to have that same discussion with Sarah.

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Rick

10/05/2011 20:54

OK, I'll try a little math to point out a misconception about the odds of a DS baby being born to a teenager as opposed to a woman 40 or older. There have been several comments here that because more teenagers give birth, even tho they have a smaller rate of DS babies, that because of their sheer numbers, teenagers give birth to more DS babies than older women.

So first I am borrowing this link from NSG that shows the odds of different age groups having DS babies.

http://www.ds-health.com/risk.htm

Then here is a link to a site that shows birth numbers and rates by age and race and sex. But we'll just look at age and birth numbers as that is all we need for the calculations.

We'll be using 1998 for the example as that is the only year that shows the actual number of births by women over 40.

In 1998, all teenagers in the US gave birth to 485,000 babies. Using the rate of 1 in 1250 babies of teen mothers having DS, we divide 485,000 by 1250 and find that of these 485,000 babies, 388 of them would have had DS.

By contrast, the women over 40 gave birth to 85,000 babies. Now since the rate of DS babies is more divided as the women get older, I'll just use the rate of a 40 year old woman wich has the lowest incidence of DS in this older group. It gets much higher as women age from there. The rate for 40 year old women is 1 in 100. So we divide 85,000 babies by 100 and find that 850 of those babies would have DS, and the number is actually higher if you use the higher rates for those over 40.

Bottom line, in 1998, even tho they gave birth to about 1/5 the number of babies that teens did. Mothers over 40 gave birth to more than twice as many actual DS babies if not 3 times as many.

So if Bristol gave birth to a DS baby, it was only 1 of less than 400 that year to a teen mother in the USA. And given that Alaska has such a small population, about 1/500 of the US population, that means statistically less that 1 DS baby per year is born in Alaska to a teenager, but we'll give the benefit of the doubt and call it 1 in an average year. I guarantee you there are waayyyyyy more FAS and drug affected babies born in Alaska every year to teenagers. Remember, binge drinking is the biggest factor in that or binge drugging.

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Rick

10/05/2011 21:00

To add to that last thought, If you do the math, the chances are that about 2 DS babies are born to Alaskan mothers over 40 each year. Don't even want to take the time to figure out how many between 20 and 40. It doesn't matter. Trig may not even have been born in Alaska or to a Palin. But If Bristol did have a baby that somehow turned into a Sarah Palin fake pregnancy, The odds are higher is was FAS rather than DS.

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Ottoline

10/06/2011 07:37

Rick -- I like that you did your own math, but the NICHD says: ". . . most babies with Down syndrome are born to women under age 35 because more younger women have babies."

Here: http://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/down_syndrome.cfm

Also wiki says: "Although the probability increases with maternal age, 80% of children with Down syndrome are born to women under the age of 35,[42] reflecting the overall fertility of that age group."

Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome

I've now forgotten why we even care about this, because even if the chances are low of something happening in the future, once a thing has actually happened, it's no use to say "the chances were so low, it could not have happened."

Remember too that the experts tell us there is no known cause of DS (why those chromosomes behave wrong), although it happens more with advancing age. Consanguity (cousins, incest, etc.) is also nowhere correlated with higher incidence.

Well, if nothing else, I sure have learned a lot more about DS via these blogs.

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magpie

10/06/2011 08:32

Ears on all babies can change very rapidly. Our son was born with Spock ears but they disappeared without any help or notice. It would be the size of the baby that would catch my eye and it did. I don't know what they were feeding that kid. I do know some DS babies and they seemed to become rounder than usual very quickly and hold that beefiness into adulthood, but the kid in the picture I saw recently with Todd looked 100% normal! How did that happen!

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rubbernecking

10/07/2011 07:13

@Rick, I agree with your math regarding DS births. It's very rare, but not impossible, for a teen to give birth to a child with DS. The actual number of DS births to women even younger than 18 is very, very small.

The problems with the FAS theory, however:

1. No one has ever identified any FAS-like characteristics in any of the known baby photos.

2. DS has distinctive facial characteristics, which are visible in almost all pictures of Trig/Ruffles. Laura asked two doctors to review photos and they diagnosed DS, not FAS.

3. There is no prenatal diagnosis for FAS. Several commenters here said FAS is not typically diagnosed until childhood, and only after there's some evidence of a developmental delay.

So even if FAS is mathematically more likely than DS in a teen birth, it does not explain the need for a cover-up. FAS would not prevent an adoption or create a political controversy because FAS is not easily detected in an infant.

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Rick

10/07/2011 17:49

Two words......Birth defects...... Didn't necessarily need to be classic FAS. But as you say, wouldn't have been diagnosed before birth, but once the baby was born....may have been very obvious. And something that would have needed to be hid, unlike DS.

Remember, we're looking for a reason someone would take the drastic and desperate step of faking a pregnancy. Being a PG teenager doesn't cut it. And a teen age mother with a DS baby would elicit sympathy.

A deformed baby probably caused by booze or drugs is another story all together. Something to be hidden. And maybe the fact they adopted a DS baby was a red herring to take attention away from everything else. Trouble with lying is, once you start, you have to keep lying to cover the previous lies until it implodes on you.

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Rick

10/07/2011 18:01

Ottoline, Under 35 is a lot bigger group than just teenagers. You could change what you said and say that most DS babies are born to women 20 and over. Remember, Britol was a teenager. Sarah was over 40. That is why I used those two age groups for the example. If Bristol gave birth to a DS baby that year, she was likely the only teenager in Alaska to do so. Just showing the odds of that being the case. Not very high.

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rubbernecking

10/11/2011 09:39

@Rick, I think we're just swapping one mathematically unlikely scenario for another.

You don't like the odds of a 17-year old having a DS birth, but you don't address the odds of a acquiring a white baby with DS on short notice.

Palin announced her pregnancy on 3/5/2008 and presented Trig on 4/18/2008. At what point between 3/5 and 4/18 did the Palins realize they needed a substitute baby? Who helped them acquire the baby? Once Palin told her secret supporters the reason for the baby swap, why did they still view her as their star Christian candidate? No one blinked at the idea of giving a baby to family of heavy drug/alcohol users?

And what evidence do we really have that Bristol's use of drugs or alchohol was excessive? Aren't wine coolers a common rite-of-passage for middle class teenage girls?

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Andrea

10/16/2011 06:20

I’m a bit of an outlier it seems, as I don’t believe Bristol gave birth to Trig. No way!

(I might be wrong, and my ‘belief’ is instinctual and an opinion.)

An attempt to muster some argument:

1) BP is well-known, very recognizable, and a very social girl. To hide the pregnancy from month 3 up she would have had to disappear and be out of sight of everyone she knew and anyone who might recognize or photograph/film her - even by accident anywhere, the photo might surface later. She would not have been able to go out, drive, go shopping, see her siblings, any close person (unless they were in on the secret and absolutely trustworthy, say SP and Todd), or anyone who knew who she was. Staying with a family member (e.g. aunt) is absolutely out of the question: the aunt has friends, people visit, people come to the door, staying inside hidden is NOT an option - one would even surmise that neither BP nor the aunt would put up with it. The risk of being caught out is very high, and the aunt is particularly exposed, and BP would have gone stir crazy, and every single person who knew her would be going *Wazzup?* and *Coming to that meet?!?*

BP would literally have to be cloistered and certainly outside Alaska and even better, the US. In a place that has acceptable hospital/med care for the birth, with HIPPA type laws that protect the mother.

Her complete absence for at least 4-5 months would have to be explained, there would have to be a reason for it. It would have to be iron-clad, very definitive. Note that scenarios like “a fashion and French course in Paris” or “a stint teaching English to orphans in Mexico” or similar are difficult to bring off. Where are the pictures? Who are her new friends in Paris? Isn’t Miranda’s cousin *at the same school*, but she hasn’t seen BP?? BP could not credibly simply vanish for 5 months (locked in a cave..) and would have to keep in touch with her family, friends, etc. and pretend to be as she always was.

We know nothing like this took place. No official, explained, time out.

BP basically went about her business in various places in Alaska, even if pictures are rather slim, and dates confused. Not one of the pictures (imho) shows a pregnant BP, though at times she has been somewhat plump, in that long waisted, got a bit of a tummy, teenage way. (Like on that dancing TV show, she did not give birth later.)

True fact about pregnancy: it is almost impossible to hide and very easy to fake.

2) If BP hid this pregnancy, she did so right from the start. (Why?) From her girl friends, her clique, her sisters, and Levi as the father or putative papa (though one can imagine Levi agreeing to whatever BP decided.) If a girl-friend / Levi / anybody else except SP herself and a doc knew about this pregnancy the risks of having the fake pregnancy revealed are too high. Anybody who suspected or knew BP was expectin’ could have blabbed at any time, keeping them quiet for ever is too arduous, too dangerous. Note that one of those who would have be kept quiet is BP herself. (I don’t take some text chatter about being pregnant or being suspected of being in that state by teen-age girls to be of any account, that happens everyday...it is dramaz*! and part of becoming an adult.)

3) Facts: Being a teen unwed mother hasn’t done BP any harm, *au contraire*, nor has this fact impacted SP’s image at all. We know BP loves children and wanted to be a mother...what is the big deal? To get rid of a shameful baby (ugly scenarios) for ever, his very existence obliterated? That didn’t happen.

If BP was the mother, outcomes are all good:

a) BP keeping a DS baby - for SP (family all together, etc.) and BP - herself...a young unwed mother with the extra special challenge of a DS child!

b) SP (+Todd) adopting him is a hugely noble gesture, and better than being a famous Pol who has several children already and gestates at the age of 44, after being ‘selected’ for VP as female, white, but beyond the family building stage.

Therefore, BP is not the mother.

4) The rumors or suppositions about BP being Trig’s mother serve SP’s purpose. They allow ppl to latch onto some traditional, simple, explanation to wash away the fake pregnancy. Under this script, SP only did what she had to do to protect her daughter (nonsense, as she doesn’t protect her, and didn’t need to, as the Tripp birth shows) so everything is neatly explained away and there is *nothing to see here.* Therefore, SP will not ever squash these rumors, although she may complain about them to give them a louder drumbeat.